Latest Expert Witness News

Islamic charity vindicated

In a significant setback to the Justice Department the US District Court Judge Dennis Saylor has overturned the convictions of a defunct Boston-based Islamic charity leader, Samir Al-Monla and ordered his immediate release.

Samir Al-Monla along with Emadeddin Muntasser and Muhammed Mubayyid, two other leaders of the former charity, Care International Inc., were convicted in January of conspiracy to dupe the US government into awarding their organization tax-exempt status by hiding its pro-jihad activities.

Muntasser, 44, was born in Libya and was the founder of Care International. Mubayyid, 43, was born in Lebanon and was the group’s former treasurer. Al-Monla, 51, the group’s president from 1996 to 1998, was born in Kuwait and is a US citizen. Their charity group, which was not affiliated with the well-known global relief organization CARE International, raised $1.7 million in donations from 1993 to 2001.

On June 3, Judge Sylor ruled that a jury should not have convicted them in January of most of the tax-related crimes for which they were tried.

Saylor ruled that the federal prosecutors failed to prove that the two defendants, Al-Monla and Muntasser, schemed to deceive the IRS about Care International’s activities, even if they withheld information from other federal authorities. He pointed out that much of the government’s evidence against the two was flimsy or cobbled together with flawed reasoning.

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