Holy Land Defendant: 'This Trial is an Extension of a Zionist Conspiracy!'

Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 1:08:12 pm PDT

The Hamas funding trial isn’t going well for former Holy Land Foundation chairman Ghassan Elashi, and today he started yelling about a “Zionist conspiracy.”

In time-honored radical Islamist fashion.

U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish threatened to bar one of the Holy Land trial defendants from the courtroom Monday after he shouted in frustration as the courtroom was clearing for a mid-morning break.

It wasn’t immediately clear what Ghassan Elashi, the Holy Land Foundation’s former board chairman, said after the judge had left and the jury was exiting, but he yelled and pointed as court security guards escorted him to a holding cell. During breaks and at night, Mr. Elashi goes back into federal custody to serve time on a previous sentence.

Judge Fish addressed the outburst after jurors left the courtroom for their lunch break.

“It was reported to me during the last recess, although I didn’t hear it myself, as the jury was leaving the courtroom, there was an outburst from Ghassan Elashi,” Judge Fish said. “It was reported to me that [Mr. Elashi said] ‘This trial is an extension of a Zionist conspiracy,’ or something to that effect. I just need to tell Mr. Elashi, and what I’m saying to him applies to all the defendants, we can’t have outbursts like that that will disrupt the trial.”