DAVID KOENIG DALLAS A mistrial was declared yesterday for four former leaders of a Muslim charity accused of funding terrorism, after chaos broke out in a Texas court when three jurors disputed the verdict.
One accused - Mohammed El-Mezain, former chairman of Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development - was cleared of most charges. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on another, which also resulted in a mistrial.
The outcome came after confusion in court, when three former leaders of the group were initially found not guilty. When jurors were polled, however, three said the verdicts were read incorrectly.
The judge sent the jury back to resolve the differences, but after about an hour, received a note saying 11 jurors felt further deliberation would not lead to a unanimous decision.
The jury forewoman said she was surprised. "When we voted, there was no issue in the vote," she said.
In all, five former leaders and the Holy Land group were accused of providing aid to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The US designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1995 and again in 1997, making financial transactions with the group illegal.-AP
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article