The jury has been sworn in for the criminal trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and five of its leaders, who are charged with indirectly aiding Hamas by providing charitable aid to grassroots organizations in the West Bank and Gaza. The case is focusing public attention on two issues important to the charitable sector. First, some of the secret evidence used to shut down HLF and freeze its assets in 2001 will come to light, and its reliability and veracity will be challenged. Secondly, the case raises the question of whether it is a crime to provide humanitarian aid through organizations that are not designated as supporters of terrorism. The trial in the U.S. District Court in Dallas, TX, is expected to take three to five months. The prosecution argues that HLF leaders knew the local groups they were working with to deliver aid were controlled by Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. But defense attorneys argue that it was legal to work with these groups, and at least one, Al Razi Hospital, received funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development during the same time period. HLF was shut down by the Department of Treasury in late 2001 when it was designated as a supporter of terrorism under the U.S. Patriot Act. The group challenged the designation but lost in a process that used secret evidence and did not allow the group to present the court with evidence on its own behalf. (For details, see the March 2006 OMB Watch report Muslim Charities and the War on Terror.) In 2004, HLF was charged in a 42-count indictment, which alleges HLF gave over $12 million to local zakat committees controlled by Hamas and gave priority aid to families of suicide bombers. ("Zakat" is an Islamic concept of tithing or giving of alms. Muslims are obligated to give 2.5 percent of their wealth when their wealth is above a specified level.) The charges were announced on the same day HLF asked the Department of Justice Inspector General to investigate Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) use of Israeli intelligence reports that an independent expert found was riddled with translation errors. Pre-trial proceedings in the case have unearthed troubling problems with evidence. In February, the Los Angeles Times reported that declassified government documents show summaries of surveillance of Holy Land's former executive director erroneously claim he made explicit anti-Semitic comments. However, none of the quotes included in the summary were in the 13-page transcript of the conversation. Under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act, the defense attorneys are prohibited from sharing the material with their clients and thus unable to prove that the statements were never said or misunderstood. In March, the trial judge denied a defense request to declassify additional pages of FBI evidence so they could look for other such discrepancies. The defense attorneys have said they only have summaries for about ten percent of ten years worth of surveillance. In June, the prosecution took the unusual step of publishing a list of over 300 unindicted co-conspirators in the case, including established Muslim organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). In a July 23 Los Angeles Times story, Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR called the move "McCarthyite tactics" and an "attempt to marginalize and disenfranchise mainstream Muslim groups." The law does not allow unindicted co-conspirators to challenge their designation. Jury selection in the trial took one week. Three potential jurors were dismissed because they said they feared retaliation from Hamas if there is a conviction. The prosecution asked the judge to cut a juror who said she might have problem convicting the defendants as supporters of terrorism if the support was humanitarian aid. The prosecution is arguing that even though the zakat committees were not designated as supporters of terrorism, the defendants knew or should have known that they had connections to Hamas, and that the aid made it possible for Hamas to spend funds on terrorist activities. If the government's position prevails, it will create a new, expanded definition of what constitutes illegal support that could leave many charities guessing about what groups they can and cannot work with. Given the drastic sanctions involved, and the possibility of criminal charges, many charities may pull back from providing humanitarian aid in conflict areas such as the Middle East. While HLF has strong supporters, such as Hungry for Justice website, and strong detractors, such as the CounterTerrorism Blog, the central question for charities is not the specific facts of the HLF case. Instead, the question is whether humanitarian aid should be blocked because one or more persons involved in some stage of aid delivery has ties to a designated terrorist group.