Hizbullah men using Nazi salute
Hizbullah men using Nazi saluteIsrael news photo:<a target="_blank" href="ht

U.S. Federal Judge Richard M. Berman sentenced on Tuesday a New York resident who broadcast satellite television programming of the Hizbullah terrorist organization to more than a year in prison. Saleh Elahwal pleaded guilty to providing material support to the terrorist organization's Al Manar news network between September 2005 and August 2006. He was sentenced to a year and five months.

Israel, the U.S., and many European countries define the Lebanese-based Hizbullah organization a terrorist group, prohibiting any transaction with a terrorist organization.

Elahwal's sentencing comes two months after the main defendant, Javed Iqbal, was ordered by a federal judge in Manhattan to serve five years and nine months. Iqbal, dubbed by a prosecutor as “Hizbullah’s man in New York City," ran his business from a Brooklyn storefront and the garage of his Staten Island home, which had satellite dishes in the backyard.

Iqbal’s lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, had earlier argued that his client was applying his First Amendment Rights that guarantee freedom of speech and providing satellite TV services. However, Judge Berman rejected Dratel’s argument, ruling that the prosecution wasn’t based on content of speech but on conduct – claims that he financed an international terrorist organization.

Iqual’s defense attorney also argued that his client’s airing the Hizbullah station wasn’t based on ideological reasons but rather on a “discrete and narrow aspect of an otherwise legitimate” business. Dratel cited as proof that Iqual also broadcast Christian broadcasting and adult entertainment, which he said was “180 degrees from Islamic fundamentalism.”

Federal prosecutor Eric Snyder disagreed, stating that Iqbal helped get out the terrorist group’s message. Calling Hizbullah a “sophisticated terrorist organization in all respects,” Snyder said that the group had used its round the clock channel to recruit members and suicide members and to raise funding for weaponry and operations. The prosecutor noted that Hizbullah had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group prior to September 11, 2001.

“He was, in a very real sense, Hizbullah’s man in New York City,” Snyder stated. “He did all this to bring the Hizbullah operations to our shores, to allow Hizbullah to have their operations here in New York City. That’s a very dangerous thing. That’s what this crime is about,” Snyder added.