President Joe Biden on Thursday commuted the federal sentence of Mofid Abdel Kader Meshaal (or Mufid Abdulkader), the half-brother of billionaire Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal, who served 16 of his 20 years in prison. .
Biden has granted 39 pardons and commuted nearly 1,500 sentences, including to controversial individuals.
Abdulkader is was convicted of a crime In 2008, he was one of five defendants in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing trial, which revealed that the U.S. Islamic charity had been collecting donations to Hamas after it was designated as a terrorist organization. did.
398211 04: FBI agents guard the entrance to the Holy Land Foundation on December 5, 2001 in Richardson, Texas. The Holy Land Foundation disputes U.S. government claims that it uses charitable donations to fund Hamas and that its goal is to destroy Israel. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) worked with the Biden-Harris administration to water down the White House's anti-Semitic “strategy.” named As a co-conspirator who was not prosecuted at trial.
It was not immediately clear why Abdulkader was released. Some observers expressed outrage that the Biden-Harris administration released Hamas-linked prisoners even though Hamas is still holding American hostages in Gaza.
However, the Times of Israel reported Israeli sources speculate that the release may have been part of hostage negotiations with Hamas, but President-elect Donald Trump has warned that if all 100 remaining hostages are rescued, there will be “hell in hell”. Negotiations are said to have improved in the past few days, with the president saying the deal would come at a “cost of 20%.” They were not released by January 20, leaving Hamas with few sources of military support in the Islamic world since the fall of Syria's Assad regime.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. He is the author of a recently published e-book. Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 US Presidential Election. his recent book, red novembertells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
