Hamas funding, clues based on open sources are not valid
Grounds deposited in which the judges also annulled other arrests of representatives of charities linked to the organisation on remand
Neither the documents marked "Avi" of Israeli origin, nor the so-called "open sources" fished from the web, can be used in the trials on alleged funds to Hamas by charities supporting Palestine. The Court of Cassation deposited the grounds, with which on 8 April, it had annulled the orders of the Genoa Re-examination Department that had confirmed, among others, the arrests of Mohammad Hannoun, the Palestinian activist and architect accused of terrorist association (Article 270-bis of the Penal Code) for allegedly financing Hamas through his charity Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (Abspp). The man had been arrested at the end of December along with six other people.
But the Supreme Court, in a series of orders (19364/2026 and others), dismantled a circumstantial framework based on non-usable sources.
"Open sources" and usability
The judges recall that the expression 'open sources' is also used in case law to define information accessible to all. News that can be found through the press, television and radio broadcasts or the web. A 'cauldron' in which everything is in. Even the very personal opinion 'of the keyboard lion', usable on a par with high-level science. The possibility of acquiring data available on the web, to which Article 234-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure expressly refers, is not, however, equivalent to admitting the usability in the trial.
Specifically, the re-examination, after having correctly excluded the documents initialled 'Avi' of Israeli origin, constructed a circumstantial framework on the basis of inadequately qualified sources . Thus, various allegations were made: from Hamas using as a funding channel charities and foundations of the Muslim Brotherhood, to Hannoun's connection, as a contact person in Gaza, with Osama Alisawi, who served as a minister in the Palestinian government and is one of the founders of the Solidarity Association for the Palestinian People.
What will be decided at the referral
On remand, the re-examination will instead have to verify whether, for Hannoun and the other suspects, 'there are the satisfying elements of the awareness, of the (also) terrorist purposes of the financing operations object of the associations' activities'. Clarity is also needed on the activities of the charities repeatedly referred to in the precautionary measures: whether they represent a mere fictitious 'screen' for financing terrorist acts. Or whether, in the event that the charities instead exist and are engaged in the welfare sector on behalf of Hamas or managed by Hamas, "this sector is in any case functional, in whole or in part, to the fulfilment of the terrorist objectives of Hamas itself".
