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Washington Post – April 14, 2006
Ex-Professor in Terror Case to Be Deported
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities have decided to deport a former Florida professor and longtime Palestinian rights activist after failing to convict him on charges he helped finance terrorist attacks in Israel.
Sami Al-Arian, who had met with U.S. presidents and other political leaders before his terrorism indictment in 2003, reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge and be deported, two lawyers familiar with the case said Friday. The arrangement requires the approval of a judge.
It was not clear where Al-Arian would be sent.
Al-Arian has remained in jail since a jury in Tampa, Fla., acquitted him in December of eight of the 17 federal charges against him and deadlocked on the rest. Stung by the defeat in the high-profile case, prosecutors pondered whether to retry him on the remaining charges, including three conspiracy counts, or deport him.
Justice Department and immigration officials declined to comment on the agreement, as did Linda Moreno, a lawyer who represented Al-Arian during his trial. Moreno and William Moffitt withdrew as Al-Arian's lawyers in March and it was not clear who currently represents him.
The lawyers spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been made public by the court.
The case against Al-Arian was once hailed by authorities as a triumph of the anti-terror Patriot Act, which allowed secret wiretaps and other information gathered by intelligence agents to be used in criminal prosecutions.
Al-Arian and three co-defendants were charged with running a North American cell of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian had been under FBI surveillance at least since the mid-1990s.
But at the end of a five-month trial, jurors said the mountain of intercepted phone calls and other materials did not directly link Al-Arian and the others to violent acts, specifically a terrorist attack in 1995 that killed seven Israelis and American Alisa Flatow.
A Palestinian who was born in Kuwait, Al-Arian has lived in the United States for 30 years and holds permanent residency status. He was raised mostly in Egypt.
He had been a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida but was fired after his indictment. He has been held without bail for more than three years.
Al-Arian was a nationally known activist who organized voter registration drives, campaigned for candidates and lobbied politicians.
His attorneys have said he has been to the White House and met with Presidents Clinton and Bush on four separate occasions. Al-Arian also had contact with nearly two dozen political and government leaders, including Hillary Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and Dennis Hastert, his lawyers have said….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401149.html
CAIR Bulletin - April 14, 2006
CAIR welcomes resolution of Al-Arian case
Government decides not to retry Florida Muslim professor
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 14, 2006 - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today welcomed the government's decision not to retry Sami Al-Arian, a Florida Muslim professor who remained in jail despite being acquitted late last year of eight out of 17 federal charges brought against him. The jury deadlocked on the other charges.
According to media reports, Al-Arian reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge and be deported to an unidentified country. A former defense attorney in the case said the government conceded in the agreement that there were no acts of violence committed by Al-Arian. Details of the agreement have not been made public and still require the approval of a judge.
In a statement, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
"We welcome the decision not to retry Professor Al-Arian. We are concerned however that the price paid for his freedom is deportation to another country, an additional burden on a family that has suffered tremendously over the past few years. The negative impact this tragic episode has had on the image of our legal system worldwide warrants a complete re-examination of government policies and procedures in such cases."
In December of last year, the American Muslim Taskforce for Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major Muslim organizations, welcomed Al-Al-Arian's acquittal, calling it a "vindication of America's finest ideals and principles."
Read also: AMT: American Muslims Welcome Al-Arian Verdict
AMV News - April 14, 2006
Is There Any Justice in America for
Muslim Americans Post 9/11?
By Samina Faheem Sundas
After spending ten years on investigating and spending five months on this trial our government failed to prove the charges brought against Dr. Sami Al- Arian. He has spent over three years, mostly in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison.
I cannot imagine the relief Dr. Arian's family must be feeling to know that at last he will be a free man.
But this freedom is bitter sweet since he will be deported. This family has not been together since 20th
Feb 2003 and they endured an uphill battle. I admire Dr. Arian's wife Nahla and their five children for
their faith in him and for always fighting for his rights. He also had few friends and fans who stood by him.
I am confused, should I congratulate him and his family but I am wary of their agony of separation, yet
again. But at least he will be a freeman where ever he may land. I wish all of them well.
Whenever Muslim names are associated with any suspicious activity, the administration and the media
create a big drama and leave behind a permanent negative impression on my fellow Americans about
Muslims. This is one of the reasons for the rise of anti Muslim and anti Islam sentiments in America.
Federal authorities have decided to deport Dr. Sami Al- Arian because after ten years of investigation and five month jury trial they could not convict him.
(Samina Faheem Sundas, Executive Director of the American Muslim Voice)
CCEJ Bulletin - April 17, 2006
CCEJ welcomes impending end of Al Arian’s incarceration
The Citizens Committee for Equal Justice (CCEJ), an organization dedicated to promoting due process and equal justice for all, has issued the following statement regarding the recent agreement between Dr. Al-Arian and the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida:
This Agreement was reached after a federal jury had acquitted Dr. Al-Arian on eight of seventeen charges and was deadlocked 10 to 2 in Dr. Al-Arian’s favor on the remaining nine. The final outcome of the this three-year long trial is summed up by the Washington Post: “Stung by the defeat in the high- profile case, prosecutors pondered whether to retry him on the remaining charges, including three conspiracy counts, or deport him.”
Dr. Agha Saeed, the Convener of CCEJ, hailed the Agreement as “a victory for Dr. Al-Arian, his family and the Palestinian people. It is a matter of public record that Dr. Al-Arian has won his freedom by acknowledging, asserting, and upholding his support for Palestine and Palestinians.”
Dr. Al-Arian has signed this agreement on the advice of his two attorneys and several legal consultants. All of them had agreed that regardless of the outcome of the retrial on the remaining 9 charges, Dr. Al-Arian would be deported at the end of that lengthy process.
“This is a clear recognition of defeat by the government,” former majority whip, U S House of Representatives, David Bonior says. “Hopefully we will now ban the use of secret evidence and respect the fundamental principles of our own constitution.”
The U.S. Attorney has agreed to recommend that the judge impose the low end of the possible period of incarceration. Thus Dr. Al-Arian could be released in May of this year. At the time of sentencing all remaining Counts will be dismissed. Dr. Al-Arian has agreed to give up his US resident status and leave the US.
“What’s most significant in this plea deal is the absence of any reference to any act of violence or incitement to violence on the part of Dr. Al-Arian. Nor was there any mention of financing any violence. I’m now more convinced than ever that this was a political case against advocates of the Palestinian cause,” former US Congressman Paul Findley said.
"The Government's handling of the case against Dr. Al-Arian casts a dark shadow over the fairness of prosecutors in dealing with cases where a jury acquits on most charges and hangs up 10 to 2 for acquittal on the remaining ones,” Pete McCloskey, former Deputy District Attorney, Alameda County, California, observed. “In most cases of this kind the Government would either grant an immediate new trial or dismiss the charges. That Dr. Al-Arian has been held without bail for over three years indicates that political forces have played a role in the prosecutor's decisions. There is no place for this in the American system of justice."
Civil rights attorney Eric Vickers observed; “It’s obvious that this plea agreement was the government’s attempt to save face in order to end this case. After its tremendous defeat and embarrassment, the government is dropping all the remaining charges in exchange for this plea of guilt by Dr. Al-Arian—essentially for helping secure the release of his brother-in-law who was detained on secret evidence. I’m very happy for the Al-Arian family, but sad for our state of affairs.”
“As a symbol of Palestinian resistance, Dr. Al-Arian remains steadfast in his twin struggles for civil liberties and Palestinian freedom - for the rule of law at home and the rule of international law abroad,” Abdeen Jabara, a legal advisor to the Al-Arian Defense Committee, said. “Dr. Al-Arian remains firmly committed to both struggles.”
Dr. Al-Arian’s case has been iconic of the moral and intellectual resistance to the assault on the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom and the rights of supporters of that struggle in the United States.
“Dr. Al-Arian’s involvement in that struggle was similar to that of the Underground Railroad that sought to protect slaves escaping from the brutal conditions of slavery in the South”, Dr. Agha Saeed, the Convener of the CCEJ, said.
Under this agreement, Dr. Al-Arian, his long-suffering family and the entire Muslim community will be spared the further grinding ordeal of another lengthy and expensive trial in an atmosphere clouded by uncertainty and fear.
“Delighted as I am to learn that Sami Al-Arian will at last be released from jail,” notes University of Maryland Professor Charles Butterworth, “I am terribly saddened about what the agreement says about justice in the country of my birth and allegiance. It is a poignant indication that Arabs and Muslims have little to expect from the American justice system, especially if they speak out for the liberation of Palestine. But we should not let this deter us from trying to make the US safe for Arabs and Muslims.”
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