*  Dr. Dhafir’s case will soon be coming back to court for resentencing: write to the judge asking for leniency.Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer has given clear instructions for writing the most effective letters, and they can be found here (letters should be submitted to Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer and not directly to the judge).

*  Write to Dr. Dhafir and let him know that he is not forgotten and that his humanitarian work is appreciated: Rafil Dhafir, 11921-052, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute,
IN 47808

Federal prosecutor Charged with drunk-driving and wrong-way driving

John O’Brien The Post-Standard 3/04/11

A longtime Syracuse federal prosecutor was charged this week with driving drunk after he was pulled over going the wrong way on Interstate 81 in the North Country.

State police charged Gregory West with driving while intoxicated, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, and driving with an open container of liquor. State trooper Jeffrey Stevenson pulled West over as the assistant U.S. attorney was driving his 2006 Toyota Tundra south in the northbound lanes of 81 in the town of Pamelia at 10:19 p.m. Tuesday.

West, 59, of Syracuse, had a blood-alcohol content of 0.17 percent, state police said. He was “cooperative and a complete gentleman” with Stevenson, the trooper said.

West has been a federal prosecutor in Syracuse for more than 30 years. Among the defendants he prosecuted were members of the Mafia and former Syracuse Mayor Lee Alexander.

February 26^th, 2011 marks the eighth anniversary of the imprisonment of Dr. Rafil Dhafir as he continues to pay the price for feeding the children of Iraq during the U.S.- and U.K.-sponsored UN sanctions against that country.   His charity, Help the Needy (HTN), openly sent food and medicines to starving civilians in Iraq during the brutal embargo.

I did not know Dr. Dhafir before attending virtually all of his 14-week trial. The demonization of Muslims in the U.S. in the post-9/11 period, and the fact that the government was hinting at terrorism connections without bringing any charges, made it imperative for me to attend. I have had a passion for the preservation for civil liberties since watching a documentary, at the age of 14, of the Allies going into Bergen-Belsen, and for 38 years I have been a voracious reader of first-hand accounts of what happened in Germany in the 1930s. I knew that should anything like this happen in my lifetime, I wanted no part of it.

Dr. Dhafir was born in Iraq in 1948.  He completed medical school before immigrating to the U.S. in 1972, and has been a U.S. citizen for more than 30 years.  An oncologist in an underserved community, he treated many people for free, paying for expensive chemotherapy out of his own pocket.  He is a pillar of the central New York Muslim community and a well-known national and international figure. Although charged with only white-collar crime, Dr. Dhafir was held without bail for 19 months before trial, which greatly impeded his ability to prepare his defense.

The proceedings showed him to be a devout man of compassion who was highly esteemed by all his associates, and the message his conviction sent to the Muslim community cannot be overstated. Dr. Dhafir was convicted on 59 counts of white-collar crime (the government had made a mistake in one of the counts, and the jury was not allowed to deliberate on it) and is currently serving 22 years – for a crime he was never convicted of in a court of law, money laundering to help terrorist organizations – in a special Communication Management Unit that houses almost exclusively Muslim and/or Arab prisoners.

Before attending this trial, I spent my entire life secure in the knowledge that my civil rights would always be respected. I no longer believe this to be true.

IRAQ UNDER SANCTIONS AND DR. DHAFIR’S HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 1, 1990, and on August 2 U.S. sanctions against Iraq were put in place. On January 17, 1991, the first bombs of the Gulf War were dropped on Baghdad. Before this war, the people of Iraq had a standard of living comparable to many Western countries. Although a brutal dictatorship, the government provided universal healthcare and education, including college, for all its citizens. There was virtually no illiteracy, and the education and health systems were the best in the region.

During Dr. Dhafir’s trial, the government did its utmost to prevent any discussion of the conditions in Iraq under the sanctions from being part of it. Government employees, including Susan Hutner of the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), testified to having no knowledge of the effects of the sanctions, although as the government attorney addressing the situation in Iraq, Hutner helped draft the initial legal documentation to implement the sanctions and then worked on them for 12 years.  Several government witnesses of Iraqi descent broke down on the stand when they began to talk about the effects of the sanctions on their families. Each time this happened, the prosecution immediately interrupted the testimony.

The result of the war was total devastation: more bombs were dropped on Iraq in a six-week period than were dropped by all parties during World War II. In total, these were at least six times more powerful than two atomic bombs. Many types of bombs were used, including ones containing depleted uranium (DU), the waste matter from nuclear plants; hundreds of tons of DU ammunition now lie scattered throughout Iraq. The DU dust has entered the food chain through the soil and the water, and as a result many formerly unknown diseases are prevalent in Iraq. Many pregnant women delivered babies as early as six months, and many babies were born with terrible deformities.  Cancer rates increased dramatically.  (These effects have been compounded by the current war in Iraq.)

All major bridges and communication systems were bombed, making communications both inside and outside the country extremely difficult. The water purification system was bombed and the UN never allowed it to be repaired; as a result, 15 years’ worth of raw sewage piled up in the streets and resulted in much disease and death, particularly among the young and very old. Hospitals and schools were not spared, and as a result of the bombing and the sanctions, the health and education systems in Iraq went from being the best in the region to being the worst.

According to the United Nations’ own statistics, every month throughout the 1990s 6,000 children under the age of five in Iraq were dying from lack of food and access to simple medicines. Three senior U.N. officials resigned because of what they considered a “genocidal” policy against Iraq. The United States led the effort to place restrictive sanctions on Iraq, and when Madeleine Albright, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked in a CBS interview if the deaths of half a million children were a price worth paying to punish Saddam Hussein, she infamously replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” When the deaths of children over the age of five and adults are added, the number killed as a direct result of the sanctions rises to between 1.5 and 2 million dead civilians.

It was in direct response to this humanitarian catastrophe that Dr. Dhafir founded the Help the Needy (HTN) charity, and for 13 years he worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people and to raise funds to help them.  According to the government, Dr. Dhafir donated $1.4 million of his own money over the years. As an oncologist, he was also concerned about the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population, which was experiencing skyrocketing cancer rates.

GOVERNMENT DUPLICITY

From the outset of the case, the government was duplicitous. Using unfair tactics and innuendo, and aided by a compliant media, the government transformed Dr. Dhafir’s community image from a compassionate humanitarian into that of a crook and supporter of terrorism.

Seven government agencies investigated Dr. Dhafir and Help the Needy for many years. They intercepted his mail, e-mail, faxes, and telephone calls; bugged his office and hotel rooms; went through his trash; and conducted physical surveillance. They were unable to find any evidence of links to terrorism, and no charges of terrorism were ever brought against Dr. Dhafir. Yet he and other HTN associates were subjected to high-profile arrests in the early morning of February 26, 2003, just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Simultaneous to the arrests, between the hours of 6 and 10 a.m., law enforcement agents interrogated 150 predominantly Muslim families because they had donated to HTN. On that day, former Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that “funders of terrorism have been arrested.”

The first indictment against Dr. Dhafir contained 14 charges related only to the Iraq sanctions. Later, when Dr. Dhafir refused to accept a plea agreement, the government piled on more charges, and he eventually faced a 60-count indictment that included violating federal regulations related to economic sanctions imposed against Iraq, money laundering, mail and wire fraud, tax evasion, visa fraud – all related to running the charity – and Medicare fraud.

Medicare charges usually involve fictitious patients and made-up illnesses; Dr. Dhafir’s case had none of this. The government never contested that patients received care and chemotherapy. Its argument for all 25 counts was that because Dr. Dhafir was sometimes not present in his office when patients were treated, the Medicare claim forms were filled out incorrectly, and he was thus not due any reimbursement for treatment or for the expensive chemotherapy his office had administered.

Just before the start of Dr. Dhafir’s trial in October 2004, Michael Powell of the Washington Post wrote, “There is a shadow-boxing quality to the terror allegations lodged against Dhafir. In August [2004], Gov. George E. Pataki (R) described Dhafir’s as a ‘money laundering case to help terrorist organizations . . . conduct horrible acts.’ Prosecutors hinted at national security reasons for holding Dhafir without bail. But no evidence was offered to support the allegations.”  Sadly, because no charges of terrorism were brought, the Washington Post and other national media did not cover the trial.

Pataki’s announcement was perfectly timed to reach potential jurors.  And while national and state figures tarred Dr. Dhafir with the terrorist brush, then-District Attorney Glenn Suddaby (now a federal judge) and local prosecutors maintained that Dr. Dhafir was nothing more than a common thief.  The prosecution even successfully petitioned the presiding judge to exclude any mention of terrorism from the proceedings.  This meant that throughout the trial, the prosecution could hint at more serious (terrorism) charges, but the defense was prohibited from addressing these inflammatory innuendos head-on. The government’s “shadow-boxing” gave a surreal feel to the proceedings; what was happening in the courtroom was not what the trial was really about.

An example of this can be seen in Mrs. Dhafir’s cross-examination by the defense. Mrs. Dhafir was Dr. Dhafir’s bookkeeper and took a plea deal by pleading guilty to one count of lying to a government agent: she had told a government agent that her husband had been present in his medical office on a day that he had not been.  On the stand, she answered questions about the intricacies of Medicare reimbursement and identified office staff signatures on Medicare reimbursement forms. While she testified, a large screen opposite the jury featured an excerpt from the Medicare Handbook, which said that in the event of a billing error, “a refund would be requested.”  This was the backdrop as Mrs. Dhafir described the mayhem at her house on the day of her husband’s arrest (she was not arrested on that day and did not face any charge until later).  Her husband left for work at his usual time of 6.30 a.m., and after he left, the doorbell rang.  Before she could answer it, five FBI agents battered down the door.  Finding Mrs. Dhafir on the other side, they held guns to her head.   Helicopters and local media hovered over the house as 85 government agents visited the house throughout the day.  Mrs. Dhafir spent the day in her nightclothes and was not allowed to shut the door when she went to the bathroom.

Inconsistencies in the government’s position were a startling feature of this case from its inception and suggested two possibilities: either one hand of the government didn’t know what the other was doing, or the government was deliberately aiming to deceive. The fact that, once conviction was successfully achieved, the ­district attorney and local prosecutors claimed it as a successful prosecution in the “war on terror” suggests that the government’s duplicity was a strategy from the outset. Mrs. Dhafir is now listed on the government’s list of successful terrorism prosecutions along with her husband and other HTN associates, including Dr. Dhafir’s personal accountant, a distinguished older man from a small town in upstate New York who was also subject to a high-profile arrest.

Jennifer Van Bergen, author of The Twilight of Democracy, wrote a two-part article on Dr. Dhafir’s case entitled “New American Law: The Case of Dr. Dhafir” and “New American Law: Legal Strategies and Precedents in the Dhafir Case.” In this article and in other writings, Van Bergen warns about the danger of civil liberties being undermined when the government uses parallel legal tracks that were never intended to be mixed.  She notes that, as happened in Dr. Dhafir’s case, conspiracy laws and money-laundering laws used “creatively” with the PATRIOT Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) can be used to construct a vastly distorted picture.

Collateral Damage: How the War on Terror Hurts Charities, Foundations, and the People They Serve, a July 2008 report by OMB Watch—which describes itself as “a nonprofit research and advocacy organization…formed in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)”—describes the difficult terrain that Muslim charities must navigate,

“Since 2001, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Justice Department have incrementally expanded their interpretation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and what is considered pro- hibited “material support” of, or “otherwise associat[ing] with,” designated terrorist organizations or individuals. Originally understood to be direct transfers of funds or goods, “material support” is now interpreted to include legitimate charitable aid that may “otherwise cultivate support” for a designated organization. Furthermore, “other- wise associated with” can include indirect or past relationships, even when there is no claim that the relationship included aiding terrorists or participating in terrorist plots or conspiracies.

“This incremental expansion of what is prohibited activity, coupled with the vague standards defining alleged terrorist associations, makes it increasingly difficult for charities and foundations to predict what constitutes illegal behavior. Consequently, the U.S. nonprofit community operates in fear of what may spark OFAC to use its power to shut them down.”

Dr. Dhafir’s case sets a legal precedent, and means that others who provide humanitarian and medical assistance to those in need could end up like him: put away for the rest of their lives.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Write to Dr. Dhafir and let him know that he is not forgotten and that his humanitarian work is appreciated: Rafil Dhafir, 11921-052, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute,
IN 47808

Dr. Dhafir’s case will soon be coming back to court for resentencing: write to the judge asking for leniency.  Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer has given clear instructions for writing the most effective letters, and they can be found here (letters should be submitted to Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer and not directly to the judge): http://www.dhafirtrial.net/write-to-judge-mordue/

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Katherine has a website dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties: www.dhafirtrial.net

See:  www.projectsalam.org, John Pilger’s documentary, Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq, and this 5 minute video, “Hate Comes to Orange County.”

Dr. Dhafir’s lawyers will file a petition for a rehearing en banc (all the judges on the court of appeals) because they believe that the court’s analysis of the sentencing issue is inconsistent with the holding of a fairly recent Supreme Court case.  They will also renew their challenge on convictions on at least one ground.

This appeal court decision makes production of a documentary about the case all the more important as a way to achieve justice in Dr. Dhafir’s case.  Donations for any amount to help make this film are greatly appreciated.

Dhafir Case Summary

ACLU Statement on the case.

Listen to a  30-minute interview of Katherine given after Dr. Dhafir was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Read Katherine’s article (mentioned in the interview).

Watch a video (shown at trial) of Dr. Dhafir at a fundraising event for his charity Help the Needy. Read Katherine’s article, Crime of Compassion.

See Denis Halliday’s letter (former U.N. assistant-secrerary-general and head of the U.N. Humanitarian Program in Iraq 1997-98) about the case. Hear Denis speak about Dr. Dhafir’s case.  Denis is a member of the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee Advisory Board.

We are currently awaiting a decision in Dr. Dhafir’s appeal.  You can find out more about the appeal here.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO:

The most important thing you can do is write to Dr. Dhafir to let him know he is not forgotten and that his humanitarian work is appreciated:

Rafil A. Dhafir
11921-052
P.O. Box 33
Terre Haute
IN 47808

Please write your name and address on the letter and envelope so that he will know whom the letter is from. Do not address him as “Doctor” as these letters are being returned.  (Because of a continuing problem with his shoulder Dr. Dhafir is not able to answer all the letters he receives, but he greatly appreciates receiving letters and cards and I encourage you to write to him.)

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Join the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee by writing to MacGregor Eddy, Acting Chair, email: mindful [at] redshift.com

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Receive updates about the case by writing to Katherine Hughes: katherinehugh [at] gmail.com

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Tell others about the case.

Feel free to republish any of Katherine’s articles.  (Please put a link to this site: www.dhafirtrial.net)

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Help the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee produce a documentary by sending a donation for any amount to:
Dr. Dhafir Support Committee Documentary Fund
Law Offices of Stephen F. Downs
26 Dinmore Road
Selkirk, N.Y. 12158

Make checks payable to “Dr. Dhafir Support Committee”
Please note that donations are not tax deductible.

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Make a donation for any amount to Dr. Dhafir’s legal fund.

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Consider having a fundraising event to raise money for Dr. Dhafir’s documentary fund or his legal fund.

Thank you for publishing the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee letter about Dr. Dhafir’s oral arguments in NYC in you paper. However, I am extremely concerned that you used the whole quote form the NYCLU and did not use quotation marks. We are not in the habit of taking other people’s words as our own, and I ask that you issue a correction to this and let your readers know that these words from the NYCLU are a direct quote. You also left the quotation marks off “win” and “justice” within the quote, and I would ask you to correct this when republishing the full quote, with correct attribution, for your readers.

Yours Sincerely,
Katherine Hughes

[Katherine: Thank you to Paul Riede and the Post Standard for addressing this so quickly, they will publish a correction tomorrow. The Post Standard's fast action on this is testimony to the effects of all the letters written in the past in support of getting things published and/or corrected. Many thanks again to all who have written.]

Almost five and a half years to the day that he became the first and only U.S. citizen jailed for resisting U.S. economic sanctions against the people of Iraq, Dr. Rafil Dhafir, a Syracuse oncologist who helped raise almost $5 million in humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people, will have his appeal heard at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, on August 28, 2008.

The Dr. Dhafir Support Committee would like to remind your readers that on the day of Dr. Dhafir’s sentencing, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) issued a statement that said,

“Every person charged with a crime in the US deserves and is entitled to fair and equal treatment under the law. In many ways, Dr. Dhafir was presumed guilty long before the trial began, and of much more than indicated by the charges filed against him. For the NYCLU, this case raises serious questions as to whether Muslims accused or charged with crimes in the US can truly receive a fair trial. Our government should not tout the conviction of Dr. Dhafir or the harsh sentence imposed by the court as a ‘win,’ or as any kind of advancement in national security. When ‘justice’ is pursued with religious and ethnic prejudice, and through actions that intimidate and isolate an entire community, there is no victory – there can be no advancement in national security, or faith in the promise of equal treatment under law.”

The Dr. Dhafir Support Committee hopes that Dr. Dhafir will find justice through the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. For more information: www.dhafirtrial.net

Magda Bayoumi
Peggy Boyd
Bob Elmendorf
Katherine Hughes
Mohamed Khater
John Oldfield
Julienne Oldfield
For the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee

Syracuse Doctor Sentenced to 22 Years in Prison for Helping Iraqi People Heads to Appeals Court August 28 in New York City

Oral arguments in the case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir and the Help the Needy charity will be heard at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City on August 28th, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York.

Almost five and a half years to the day that he became the first and only U.S. citizen jailed for resisting U.S. economic sanctions against the people of Iraq, Dr Rafil Dhafir, a Syracuse oncologist who helped raise almost $5 million in humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people, will have his appeal heard at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.

Sanctions initiated against Iraq in 1991 were the most severe in human history, and resulted in the premature deaths of well over a million Iraqi people. The American government’s refusal to lift them, despite worldwide appeals, led to the high-profile resignations of UN humanitarian coordinators Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck. When Halliday resigned in 1998, he stated: “I’ve been using the word ‘genocide’ because this is a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq. I’m afraid I have no other view.” The sanctions also drew a memorable response from Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright who, when asked on the CBS program 60 Minutes in the mid 1990s if the sanctions-related deaths of a half million Iraqi children were worth it, replied, “We think the price is worth it.”

It is against this backdrop that numerous groups from around the globe gathered funds and humanitarian supplies to be delivered directly to the people of Iraq, completely bypassing the regime of Saddam Hussein. Dr. Dhafir’s charity, Help the Needy, was founded in the1990s to buy food, clothing, and medical supplies. For 13 years he worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people, personally donating $1.4 million of his own money to the charity. As an oncologist, he was also concerned about the effects of depleted uranium on the Iraqi population which was experiencing skyrocketing cancer rates.

But Dr. Dhafir and Help the Needy came under the gun sights of the Bush administration that, following the events of September 11, 2001, raided and closed down six major and many smaller Muslim charities, accusing each of funding terrorism. In each case, alleged “guilt by association” meant that the charities’ assets were frozen and their principals arrested. Yet despite new investigative powers, government authorities have failed to produce evidence of terrorist financing by any of these Muslim charities.

Arrested just weeks before the start of the Iraq war, the federal government repeatedly pitched this case as one that had national security implications, and Dr. Dhafir was held without bail for 31 months. This denial of bail greatly impeded his legal defense, yet no charges related to terrorism were ever filed, nor were any links to terrorists proven. Unable to get Dr. Dhafir to accept a plea agreement, the government piled on the charges and, after a lengthy trial, he was found guilty on 59 counts of; violating federal regulations related to economic sanctions imposed against Iraq, money laundering, mail and wire fraud, tax evasion, visa fraud—all related to running the charity–and Medicare fraud. He is the only person ever to be incarcerated for violating the Iraq sanctions.

“Each year, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control collects millions of dollars in penalties from American Corporations who have violated these sanctions (from oil companies, banks, food and beverage companies, and entertainment companies),” says Katherine Hughes of the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee. “No executive of any such corporation has faced criminal charges. Individuals, businesses, and organizations that have openly defied the sanctions have faced only fines. Criminal prosecutions have only been made against Muslims and people of Middle Eastern origin accused of violating these economic sanctions. And unlike those corporations, there was no profit motive in Dr. Dhafir’s case.”

On the day of Dr. Dhafir’s sentencing the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) issued a statement that said,

“Every person charged with a crime in the US deserves and is entitled to fair and equal treatment under the law. In many ways, Dr. Dhafir was presumed guilty long before the trial began, and of much more than indicated by the charges filed against him. For the NYCLU, this case raises serious questions as to whether Muslims accused or charged with crimes in the US can truly receive a fair trial. Our government should not tout the conviction of Dr. Dhafir or the harsh sentence imposed by the court as a “win,” or as any kind of advancement in national security. When ‘justice” is pursued with religious and ethnic prejudice, and through actions that intimidate and isolate an entire community, there is no victory – there can be no advancement in national security, or faith in the promise of equal treatment under law.”

The Dr. Dhafir Support Committee hopes that Dr. Dhafir will find justice through the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Dr. Dhafir is currently incarcerated in the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana.

For more information on this case: www.dhafirtrial.net

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More about the appeal here.

This video shows Dr. Dhafir speaking at a fundraiser for Help the Needy. It was shown as part of the court proceedings.

Dr. Dhafir’s 45-page statement, given to the media at his sentencing, is available here.

See this article written by a relative of one of Dr. Dhafir’s patients.