No witnesses were called for the defense during the two-day trial. Supporters of the imam attended court proceedings in the Akron courtroom. Damra remains free on bond until his sentencing, which has been set for September 9. He faces up to five years in prison and loss of his citizenship and deportation.

Attorneys for Damra said they will file post-trial motions to have the conviction tossed out on grounds of insufficient evidence. If the judge rejects the motions, they say they will appeal.

The government’s case focused on videotapes that allegedly show Damra raising money for the “Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” Defense attorneys said Damra is not a member of that group and noted that in 1991, the year the tapes were recorded, Islamic Jihad had not yet been placed on the State Department’s list of “terrorist” organizations.

Prosecutors used Jew-hating diatribes by Damra calling for a holy war against “the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews,” as one of their arguments in the conviction. The comments are recorded on videotape.

“I regret saying what I said in that tape because that is not what my faith teaches me, not what civilized society stands for,” Damra later said. But, he added, the remarks “remain protected speech under the First Amendment.”

Prosecutors also said that Damra hid his association in the late 1980s with the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, New York, which the government claims was a precursor to al-Qaeda. The center, which recruited volunteers to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the ’80s, was backed at the time by the U.S. government. Defense attorneys said Damra had nothing to do with the center except to give the group a room in his mosque.

A spokesperson for the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jad Humeidan, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the jury was influenced by anti-Muslim sentiment since Sept. 11, 2001. “He’s a Muslim. He’s vocal. And he’s an active voice for Palestine,” Humeidan said. “That’s the main reason these charges were even brought. For anyone else, it’s a slap on the wrist.”

Haider Alawan, an elder at the mosque, said “To us, he is not guilty. I’m stunned. I don’t think the jury focused on the broader picture of what was going on in the world at the time—the brutal occupation by Israel.” According to television coverage of the case, double the number of worshipers attended prayers at the Cleveland mosque on the Friday following the verdict to show their support for Damra, who conducted the service.

A June 21 editorial in the Plain Dealer echoed the government’s position. “The likelihood is that Damra will be shorn of most everything: position, honor, citizenship and freedom,” it said. “That may seem too harsh for those who continue to rally around him, but it’s a fair penalty for those who consort with terrorists and their ilk, no matter what their reasons.”

The Plain Dealer alleged June 19 that Damra has also been implicated in a money-laundering plot. The paper claimed the government has transcripts of phone calls recorded through wiretaps showing that Damra had a relationship with Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian opponent of Israeli aggression living in the United States who was suspended from his teaching position at the University of South Florida in Tampa after the September 11 attacks, and framed up and imprisoned in February 2003. Al-Arian’s trial will take place next year.  
 
 
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