Hamas-Sympathizing Juror Behind Terror Mistrial

A Hamas-sympathizing juror may have misled U.S. prosecutors about his neutrality during jury selection in the nation's largest terror-financing trial, investigators familiar with the case say.
The juror's "browbeating" of fellow jurors during deliberations in the Holy Land Foundation trial led to a mistrial, they say. The Dallas-based charity and its leaders are accused of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas suicide bombers and their families.

WND has learned that prosecutors, who are preparing to retry the case next year, considered investigating the juror for perjury after hearing complaints from other jurors about his pro-Hamas, anti-Israeli bias and obscenity-laced bullying in the jury room.

"One guy caused all the trouble," said an investigator involved in the case, which charged several U.S. Muslims with conspiracy to support terrorism. "He browbeat other jurors favoring convictions."

He said the bearded 33-year-old juror – who voted not guilty across-the-board – made statements in the past that are at variance with his answers to prosecutors' questions about his bias during the jury selection.

"He clearly wasn't honest on his voir dire examination," the source said.

Voir dire is a pretrial process lawyers use to object to prospective jurors with strong opinions – in this case, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – which might preclude them from weighing the evidence objectively.