The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the unsealing of terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions-evasion charges against six senior leaders of Hamas.
According to the department’s statement, these leaders are linked to the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7th, 2023 when terrorists killed nearly 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans and kidnapped hundreds of civilians.
“The Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior Hamas leaders for financing, directing and overseeing a decades-long campaign to kill American citizens and threaten the national security of the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Several senior Hamas officials were killed, but some are still alive:
- Ismail Haniya was the chairman of the Hamas Politburo from 2017 until he was reportedly killed on or about July 31st;
- Yahya Siniar is the leader of Hamas;
- Mohammad Al-Masri was the commander in chief of the al-Qassam Brigades, a position he held from around 2002 until his reported death around July 13;
- Marwan Issa was deputy commander of al-Qassem Brigades from around 2007 to his reported death in around March 10;
- Khaled Meshaal is the chairman of Hamas’s Politburo and the head of its diaspora office; Ali Baraka has been the head of national relations abroad since around 2019.
The complaint charges each of the defendants with: conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison; conspiring to provide material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison; conspiring to murder U.S. nationals outside the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison; conspiring to bomb a place of public use resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of death or life in prison; conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of death or life in prison; conspiring to finance terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
