WASHINGTON -- Three men who allegedly helped the Palestinian militant group Hamas raise money in the United States for terrorist attacks in Israel more than a decade ago have been indicted on racketeering charges, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft announced yesterday.

One of the men was arrested in Chicago and another in a northern Virginia suburb of Washington on Thursday, Ashcroft said. The third man, who formerly lived in Louisiana and northern Virginia, has not been arrested because he now lives in Damascus.

Much of the case apparently is based on surveillance tapes from the early '90s that would have been useless to prosecutors before the USA Patriot Act. Ashcroft, the prime backer of the act, touted the new tool as a way of aggressively going after supporters of terrorism...

...Although the alleged acts all occurred more than a decade ago, which could raise statute of limitations issues, the indictment uses more recent alleged actions by two of them that putatively carried on their support for Hamas as evidence that the racketeering conspiracy was ongoing.

The indictment accuses Ashqar of refusing to testify before a grand jury about Hamas activities despite a grant of immunity in February 1998 and June 2003, which also led to a charge of obstruction of justice.

The indictment also says Salah arranged for a Chicago-based associate to travel to Israel and the West Bank in 1999 to convey messages and money and to scout locations in Jerusalem suitable for attack, which led to a charge of providing material support to a terrorist organization.