PORTLAND — The American arm of an Islamic organization the U.S. government says helped terrorists is in federal court in Portland to challenge the restrictions it’s under.

Lawyers for Al-Haramain and the Justice Department argued Thursday over whether the federal government had good enough evidence to declare its Oregon branch a “specially designated terrorist organization.”

Much of the evidence is classified, so it wasn’t discussed in the hearing before Judge Garr King.

The judge has the secret material, though. He says it may be some time before he rules.

Al-Haramain was headquartered in Saudi Arabia, which has shut it down.

One of its branches was in Southern Oregon, at Ashland. The U.S. government has seized its assets, selling the house where it had headquarters.

Al-Haramain billed itself as an Islamic charity that undertook such relief humanitarian aid to war zones.

The government alleges that the parent organization supported terror globally and was linked to the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

In the Oregon case, it has focused on the control of the Ashland branch by the worldwide headquarters and $150,000 in cashier’s and traveler’s checks smuggled to Chechnya in 2000.

The lawyer for Al-Haramain’s Oregon branch argued that much of the public evidence is the government’s own press releases.A government lawyer responded by urging King to read the classified information.

The Al-Haramain lawyer, David Cole, complained that the government has made more evidence available, but 60 percent of the documentation remains blacked out. It’s hard to challenge the government’s evidence if you don’t know what it is, Cole told King.

“I think you have to rely on the judge for that,” King told Cole.