Trial of 2 Linked to Militants Opens

In a courthouse protected by federal marshals and a ring of concrete barriers, jurors were chosen Monday for the trial of two men accused of helping run a cigarette-smuggling operation to benefit Lebanese militants.

Brothers Mohamad and Chawki Hammoud arrived at U.S. District Court in a closely guarded armored truck, and courtroom spectators passed through two checkpoints, both with metal detectors, to attend the trial. As many as a dozen marshals at a time were in the courtroom, while others stood outside with shotguns.

Lawyers and Judge Graham Mullen questioned prospective jurors for a trial that could take up to eight weeks.

Mullen told lawyers at the lunch break to be ready for opening statements Wednesday.

The government charges the Hammouds with taking part in a conspiracy that bought cheap cigarettes in North Carolina and resold them in Michigan without paying that state’s higher cigarette taxes.

Mohamad Hammoud, 28, also is charged under a 1996 anti-terrorism law with providing material support to a terrorist group, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

He faces up to 10 years in prison on that charge. If convicted and sentenced at maximum levels on other charges--money laundering, cigarette smuggling, immigration fraud and racketeering, among others--he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Chawki Hammoud, 37, faces lesser charges of cigarette smuggling, money laundering and racketeering.

Hezbollah, labeled a terrorist organization by the State Department, led a guerrilla war against Israel’s 18-year occupation of a border zone in southern Lebanon.

The occupation ended with an Israeli withdrawal in May 2000.

The group is blamed for a number of terrorist attacks on the United States, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy and a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemen.

Authorities have never charged the Hammouds or any other defendants in the case with committing or planning violent or terrorist acts.