Federal jury convicts former Muslim charity leaders for hiding terror links News
Federal jury convicts former Muslim charity leaders for hiding terror links

[JURIST] A federal jury in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts [official website] Friday convicted three former leaders of defunct Muslim charity Care International Inc. (not to be confused with CARE [advocacy website]) were convicted Friday of illegally obtaining tax-exempt status by hiding the group's pro-jihad activities. Care International Inc. purported to help war orphans, widows, and refugees in Islamic countries [JURIST news archive], but government prosecutors argued that the organization supported Islamic militants throughout the world while distributing a pro-jihad newsletter. The three former charity executives, Emadeddin Muntasser,Muhammed Mubayyid, and Samir Al-Monla, were charged with tax code violations, making false statements and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Al-Monia was acquitted on one count of making false statements; they were convicted on all other charges. AP has more.

The Boston case is not the first time in recent years that a Muslim charity has been prosecuted for alleged connections to terrorist activities. In October 2007, a Dallas federal judge declared a mistrial [JURIST report] in a controversial case against the Holy Land Foundation [LOC archived website; ADL backgrounder] charity and five of its leaders after three jurors insisted that the verdicts of acquittal [verdict for HLF chairman Mohammad El-Mazain, PDF] read by the court were incorrect. Once the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the Foundation was shut down in 2001 by federal prosecutors who accused it of financing international terrorism by supporting the Palestinian group Hamas [BBC backgrounder].

THIS DAY @ LAW

UK parliament rejected J.S. Mill's proposal to give women the vote

On May 20, 1867, the British Parliament rejected by 196-73 an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act presented by John Stuart Mill that would have permitted women to vote. Review Mill's 1869 work The Subjection of Women.

Supreme Court applies Free Exercise Clause to state governments

On May 20, 1940, the United States Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment applied to state governments in Cantwell v. Connecticut under the incorporation doctrine, which applied the protections of the Bill of Rights to state governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Learn more about the Incorporation Doctrine from the Cornell Law Schools' Legal Information Institute.