Judge Refuses to Declassify FBI Evidence in Muslim Charity Case
by Amanda Adams*, 3/1/2007
Earlier this week in the case involving the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, declassified documents were found to be fabricated, and in response lawyers requested the declassification of thousands of other pages of FBI evidence. The LA Times reports that U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish denied this request, but the fact that the document wrongly accused charity officials of anti-Semitic slurs was disconcerting. Defense lawyers were told to return to court if they find other government summaries that are inaccurate.
The judge said he found it disturbing that the government's summary included inflammatory language not found in the transcripts. . . . In their motion, defense lawyers said they had recently received declassified summaries representing about 10% of the conversations recorded by the government in court-authorized surveillance. They worried that additional discrepancies could exist in the documents.
