The group was identified in court papers as Mujahedin-e Khalq. One of the informants told the FBI that Taleb-Jedi was on a council”responsible for making leadership decisions for the organization, including approving specific acts of terrorism”against Iran, the papers said. Taleb-Jedi was arrested in March after flying from Jordan to Kennedy International Airport.

A judge agreed to release her on $500,000 bond. The court papers said she has been living at a women’s shelter in Manhattan. Taleb-Jedi was among 200 Muhjahedeen Khalq members detained and questioned by the FBI in 2004 after US military forces took over parts of Iraq once controlled by the group, the documents said. US soldiers seized tanks, anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and more than 420,000 pounds of plastic explosives.

At the time, Taleb-Jedi allegedly told agents she”wholeheartedly supports the Mujahedin,”the papers said. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, who have been investigating the group, announced last week that a grand jury in Brooklyn had indicted Taleb-Jedi on charges of providing support to a terrorist organization. If convicted, she faces up to 15 years in prison. The group, also known as the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, and its affiliates were deemed foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department in 1997. The designations bar anyone in the United States from providing material support. The defendant, who was born in Iran, came to the United States on a student visa in 1978 to pursue a master’s degree in political science in Georgia, court papers said.

She later moved to Queens before settling in Virginia, where she became a naturalized US citizen. In her FBI interview, Taleb-Jedi told agents her husband joined the Mujahedeen and went to Iraq in 1986. In 1999, after learning her husband was killed in a bombing, she”left her job, sold all her belongings and traveled”to the group’s Ashraf Base in Iraq, 40 miles north of Baghdad, documents said. A call to her attorney on Monday was not immediately returned. Arguing for her release at an arraignment, defense attorney Justine Harris said her client had returned to the United States to see her adult son and to seek medical treatment for a severe digestive ailment that had pushed her weight down to 95 pounds.

“This a middle-age woman with absolutely no record,”the lawyer said. The group was founded in Iran in the 1960s and moved to Iraq in the early 1980s to base its activities against Iran’s government. It sided with Iraq in its 1980-88 war against Iran. The State Department says the groups were funded by Saddam Hussein, supported the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and are responsible for the deaths of Americans in the 1970s.

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A federal judge in Brooklyn has upheld a terrorism prosecution against a U.S. citizen working for a group violently opposed to the Iranian government.

Zeinab Taleb-Jedi had argued that her indictment for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization was outrageous because the group to which she belongs, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), has been working with the U.S. military in Iraq.

But such are the fortunes of war, Eastern District of New York Judge Brian M. Cogan ruled in United States v. Taleb-Jedi, 06 cr. 652.

"Foreign relations generally and specifically during a time of war are not black and white, and the PMOI need not be viewed as a monolithic entity," the judge wrote. "It is perfectly permissible for the military to forge alliances with those in the PMOI with whom it wants to deal, while the Government deters through prosecution other individuals, particularly United States citizens, from rendering material support to the organization on their own."

Cogan observed that war itself is an "outrageous, but as determined by other branches of government, sometimes necessary undertaking."

Taleb-Jedi, who was born in Iran, came to the United States in 1978 and became a citizen in 1996. She worked for PMOI in America, then went to Iraq in 1999 to work at the group’s base. Among her activities were teaching English, translating documents and serving as a member of PMOI’s political department.

The U.S. State Department designated PMOI a foreign terrorist organization (listed as "Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization") in 1997, based on its involvement with assassinations and other activities targeting the Iranian government. Questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Taleb-Jedi was arrested and charged with providing material support to the group on her return to the United States in 2006.

In addition to arguing that the prosecution should be thrown out, Taleb-Jedi also challenged her indictment on First Amendment grounds, claiming PMOI is not a terrorist organization and that she is entitled to be a member of it.

The judge said any claim that PMOI was not a terrorist organization was complicated by the group’s own acknowledgement of its involvement in assassinations and other violent activities. Moreover, he said, the group’s designation by the State Department fell within the discretion accorded the executive branch in matters of national security.

The rest of her First Amendment challenge failed because, according to the prosecution, she was an employee of PMOI rather than a mere supporter, the judge said. Freedom of speech and association, he said, did not extend to actively working on a terrorist group’s behalf, even if her duties were nonviolent.

The judge noted that many terrorist groups simultaneously engaged in education and social welfare programs. But he said, even if Taleb-Jedi’s work was in a benign area, "she may be freeing up or enabling another person to take part in something far more nefarious."

However, Cogan added, if Taleb-Jedi could advance evidence at trial showing that her participation in PMOI was more passive or explicitly nonviolent in nature, an acquittal might be warranted. For instance, he noted, if her English lessons were solely to help the group advocate before the United Nations, such conduct might not constitute material support.

Taleb-Jedi was represented by Justine Harris of Federal Defenders. In a statement, Harris said she and her client were eager to take the case before a jury.

"Ultimate resolution of many of the legal issues will depend on whether the government can sustain its allegations at trial," said Harris. "At the close of the evidence, we will all have to revisit the substantial First Amendment and Due Process issues at stake."

The government was represented by Eileen M. Decker, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, as well as Eastern District of New York Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellie T. Currie.

Anthony Lin  –  New York Law Journal 

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NEW YORK (AP) – A naturalized U.S. citizen must face trial on a charge of providing material support to an Iranian terrorist organization she’s accused of helping to lead, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan denied a defense motion to dismiss the case against Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, who was arrested in 2006 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Defense attorneys have labeled the prosecution "outrageous" and argued it violated Taleb-Jedi’s civil rights.

They said that the Iranian-born widow was never involved in violence and that the group, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, also known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, has won the backing of some U.S. military officers and politicians because it advocates the overthrow of the Iranian government.

The judge, saying foreign relations "during a time of war are not black and white," wrote: "There is nothing outrageous about giving military support to certain elements of the PMOI while at the same time prosecuting an allegedly high-ranking member for violating the material support statute."

The judge, however, cautioned that "if the proof at trial shows only that the defendant participated in the PMOI through mere membership and chanting at meetings, it may well be insufficient to reach a jury or sustain a guilty verdict."

The People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State in 1997. Prosecutors say Taleb-Jedi, 52, became an English teacher in 1999 at the organization’s Iraq headquarters, Camp Ashraf.

She became a U.S. citizen in 1996. In 1997, she learned that her husband died in a bus bombing on the road between Camp Ashraf and Baghdad.

During the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2004, U.S. soldiers seized tanks, anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and more than 420,000 pounds of plastic explosives at the camp. Prosecutors allege that Taleb-Jedi told FBI agents at the time she "wholeheartedly" supported the group and that two informants have since identified her as a member of a leadership council.

Taleb-Jedi’s lawyer predicted the allegations won’t hold up at trial in Brooklyn.

"Real questions remain about what the government says Ms. Taleb-Jedi actually did, and we look forward to a jury hearing the whole story," attorney Justine Harris said.

"Once the evidence is presented at trial, we will all have to revisit the very serious constitutional issues at stake."

Prosecutors did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Thursday.

If convicted, Taleb-Jedi faces up to 15 years in prison.

By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer, July 25, 2008

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