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August 27, 2004/Elul 10 5763, Vol. 55, No. 49
Anti-mob law fights terror
RON KAMPEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - A high-profile U.S. in-dictment of three men for Hamas-related activities is less about obtaining justice for victims of anti-Israel terrorism in this particular case than about drying up financing for future attacks.
The recent use by U.S. authorities of racke-teering laws to go after terrorist fund-raisers helps close a loophole in another common law enforcement method - designating groups as terrorist organizations and making contri-butions to them prose-cutable.
While effective, terrorist designation helped perpetuate a "whack-a-mole" game: Terrorist groups can easily change names and leadership, buying time until the cogs of U.S. bureaucracy add the new name to the State Department's terrorist list.
By extending the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organi-zations to terrorist activities, the Justice Department was able to leapfrog such limi-tations: The crimes alleged in an Aug. 20 announcement stretch-ed back 15 years, well before Hamas was officially designated as a terrorist group.
At least two of the three men named in the indictment unsealed Aug. 20 by Attorney General John Ashcroft were exempt from other anti-terrorism laws because they had raised funds for Hamas before its 1995 designation as a terrorist group.
Ashcroft named Mousa Mohammed Abu Mar-zook, formerly of nor-thern Virginia; Mu-hammad Hamid Khalil Salah, of Chicago; and Hasan Abdelraziq Ash-qar, of Alexandria, Va.
Salah and Ashqar were arrested Aug. 19. Mar-zook was deported from the United States in 1997 and is now in Syria.
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