The trial of Dr. Rafil Dhafir ended last week, when the jury convicted him of 59 of 60 charges, among them defrauding Medicare and illegally aiding Iraq through his charity, Help the Needy.

But the big question on the mind of Katherine Hughes, one of Dhafir’s supporters, is whether he would have been convicted of so many charges without the undertones of national security that followed the investigation.

Hughes, a 45-year-old graduate student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, took off from school last semester to devote her time to follow the Dhafir trial. She attended court two days a week for the entire 17 weeks of the trial, taking pages of notes each day, and published a Web log detailing her observations.

Many Dhafir supporters, including Hughes, do not deny the court’s decision; their concern is that he would not have been investigated if he was not an Arab-American.

During the investigation, some public figures – including New York Gov. George E. Pataki and former Attorney General John Ashcroft – framed the Dhafir case as one that dealt with terrorism. In October 2004, the judge in the case ruled that the prosecution could not refer to terrorism during the trial.

When the Dhafir trial was brought to the forefront in the media, it grabbed Hughes’ attention, she said. She said she became interested because she felt the implications of Dhafir’s link to terrorism during his investigation infringed upon his civil liberties.

Hughes said she could not understand why a man accused of a white-collar crime had been denied bail five times and, at times, could not have direct access to his lawyers.

‘Once I got into the court and saw what was happening, it was very compelling,’ Hughes said. ‘For me it’s never been about Dr. Dhafir, but more about the violation of his civil liberties. I would have been there if any of the jury members were on trial, if it was the man at the front desk, or if it was any member of the community that I felt was not being treated fairly.’

Hughes, a native of Scotland, has lived in the United States for the past 17 years. As a hobby, Hughes began reading books about the Holocaust and conditions in the former Soviet Union. These books led her to study the state of Iraq, both before and after the first Gulf War.

About a year ago, Hughes said, she was asked to donate to a Muslim charity. She declined to give money because she did not know the charity or whose hands her money would end up in. Hughes said she worried that the Patriot Act made donating her money to a Muslim charity undesirable, and she wanted nothing to do with the risk.

As a result of that incident, she educated herself on the state of Iraq, the charities that donate to Iraq and the U.S. sanctions against Iraq, Hughes said.

She learned that the Gulf War brought wide devastation to Iraq, affecting its health sanitation and the literacy of its people. This is why, she said, there is such a need for charitable services.

‘It’s very difficult to look at the trial without looking at Iraq during the sanctions,’ Hughes said. ‘It’s hard to be diplomatic when 6,000 children are dying every month.’

Her passion for observing Dhafir’s treatment by the government and the arguments presented by the defense and the prosecution led her to start her own Web site on the doctor’s behalf.

In her Web log, Hughes criticized both the government’s actions and the media’s coverage since Dhafir’s February 2003 arrest. She also encouraged members of the community to come to the trial.

Her site makes connections to other cases which violated the U.S. sanctions on Iraq and compares the treatment of Arab-Americans in the United States to the treatment of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany.

On his own Web log, Dhafir supporter Madis Senner criticizes what he calls the government’s infringements of Dhafir’s civil liberties, as well as the coverage of the trial by the local Syracuse newspaper.

‘What happened in the courtroom was that the jury convicted based on evidence, and not on civil liberties,’ Senner said. ‘The jury chose to ignore evidence, and the government did not uphold the standard of justice that it should have.’

As a result of the trial, Senner is now organizing a campaign to ‘expose’ the injustices that he and many supporters say the government used to convict Dhafir.

As a member of the Syracuse Muslim community, Khuram Hussain, a Residence Director of Sadler Hall and graduate student in the School of Education, followed the trial as well.

Hussain said the Muslim community is shocked and victimized by the outcome of the trial. He, personally, is saddened by the news.

‘I think the people there (at the Mosque) are feeling victimized and confused,’ Hussain said. ‘Some of the people have lived in the community for decades, and they look at this as an attack on their people.’

Now Hussain is encouraging members of the community, both Arab and non-Arab, to write the judge letters on Dr. Dhafir’s behalf to reduce his sentence, which will be decided on June 20. He asks that the letters be about Dhafir’s character – his compassion, caring and contribution – as a pillar of the Syracuse community.

Like most Dhafir supporters, Hussain feels the case against the physician targeted his ethnicity and that proving he defrauded Medicare was a way in which the government could convict him.

‘The Bush administration has torn up the Bill of Rights,’ Hughes said, ‘and I’m wondering why people aren’t concerned.’

Published on February 21, 2005 at 12:00 pm