U.S. Justice Department files criminal charges against Hamas
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland announced criminal charges against Hamas and its leader Yahya Sinwar, an action spurred by the group’s murder over the weekend of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli.
The charges, filed in federal court on New York’s Southern District, are “for financing and directing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the security of the United States,” Garland said in a video on the Department of Justice’s website on Tuesday afternoon.
The charges include crimes that could get the death penalty. In addition to the organization, six individuals are named, including Sinwar. Three have been killed by Israel in recent months, including Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh. The three still alive are Sinwar; Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, based in Qatar; and Ali Baraka, a top official based in Lebanon.
“Those defendants, armed with weapons, political support and funding from the Government of Iran and support from Hezbollah have led Hamas’s efforts to destroy the State of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim in its attacks over the past three decades,” Garland said.
He honed in on the events of October 7, when Hamas launched its war against Israel with massacres and mass abductions, and over Labor Day weekend, when Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages were shot in the head as Israeli rescuers moved in.
“On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists murdered nearly 1,200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians,” Garland said. “They perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. This weekend, we learned that Hamas murdered six more hostages, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli American. We are investigating his murder and each and every one of the brutal murders of Americans as acts of terrorism.”
Charging Hamas and Sinwar, who is in hiding, allows the federal government to add resources to tracking the group and subpoenaing people who are alleged to support it. Naming Meshaal suggests the Biden administration may plan to pressure Qatar, one of a handful of countries that has relations with Hamas, to hand over its leaders who are based in the country.
The U.S. Treasury and the State Department have already designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, which allows the United States to freeze any funds the group keeps in dollar accounts, and a press release said the FBI, which will lead the new investigation, is looking at how Hamas is financed.
“Since 2019, Hamas’s military wing has used social media and other platforms to call for cryptocurrency contributions from supporters abroad, including in the United States, to Hamas-controlled virtual wallets, explicitly acknowledging that those payments would be used to fund Hamas’s campaign of violence,” it said. “Through these mechanisms, Hamas has received tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency payments to fund its activities.”
The charges notably were filed in the Southern District of New York, which is staffed with federal prosecutors who have for decades been leading terrorism prosecutions.
“Our commitment is clear: if you hurt one member of our community, you hurt all of us — and we stand with all victims of Hamas’s reign of terror,” the district’s U.S. Attorney, Damian Williams, said. “We will bring justice to this terrorist organization from the top down for the atrocities they have committed.”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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