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Hung Jury in Terror Finance Case

The government's most celebrated effort to prosecute a Muslim charity for financing terrorism ended in a bust.

A federal judge declared a mistrial on Monday in what was widely seen as the government’s flagship terrorism-financing case after prosecutors failed to persuade a jury to convict five leaders of a Muslim charity on any charges, or even to reach a verdict on many of the 197 counts. ...

The case involved 197 counts, including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. It also involved years of investigation and preparation, almost two months of testimony and more than 1,000 exhibits, including documents, wiretaps, transcripts and videotapes dug up in a backyard in Virginia.

The only verdicts returned were acquittals. Prosecutors are vowing to present their (mostly nonexistent) case to a second jury, apparently hoping that new jurors will be cowed by the words "terrorism" and "Muslim" and will overlook the absence of evidence that the charity financed anything other than charitable works.

The implications of the government's strategy for dealing with Muslim charities are stunning:

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