The Case of Sami al-Arian

At 5:30 am on a February morning in 2003, officers from the FBI and Joint Terrorism task Force raided the south Florida home of Professor Sami al-Arian. The officers grabbed him and took him from the house as his wife and 3 children watched in horror. At a press conference later that day, Attorney General John Ashcroft accused al-Arian of funding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, calling it "one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world."
That day, the Justice Department handed down a sweeping 50-count indictment against Al-Arian and seven other men, charging them with conspiracy to commit murder, giving material support to an outlawed group, extortion, perjury, and other offenses.

An indictment against Al-Arian had been rumored for months, but the one returned by a federal grand jury in Tampa was more expansive than most observers had expected. It accused Al-Arian of masterminding a terrorist support group that thrived in south Florida for nearly 20 years.

Sami Al-Arian was a tenured professor of computer science at the University of South Florida. In his personal life, he was known as an outspoken Palestinian activist and frequently spoke on college campuses. He had had previous encounters with the FBI in the mid-1990s, when the office of a group he established was raided by federal agents and al-Arian was under investigation on suspicion of aiding terror groups. Though Al-Arian was investigated for two years, he was never detained or charged with a crime and continued to work for the school...that is, until he got a call from the FOX News Channel.

In late September 2001, al-Arian was invited to be a guest on The O'Reilly Factor. Al-Arian thought he was going to be discussing Arab-American reactions to the attacks. Instead, host Bill O'Reilly went on a tirade against him, basically accusing al-Arian of supporting terrorism and terrorist groups. O'Reilly dug up comments al-Arian had made 15 years earlier and suggested that he should be followed everywhere he went. All of this on live international television and just weeks after the 9-eleven attacks. Here is an excerpt of that program on September 28, 2001. O'Reilly begins by referring to al-Arian's connections to former colleague Ramadun Abdullah Shallah who later resurfaced as head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.


(Tape)
The O'Reilly Factor, September 28, 2001.
Beginning the next day, the University of South Florida, where al-Arian worked was barraged by hundreds of threatening letters and emails. Thirty-six hours after the interview, the university put Al-Arian on paid leave. In October of 2002, a few months before his house was raided and he was put in prison, I had a chance to interview Sami al-Arian at an antiwar demonstration in New York, commemorating the one year anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan.


(Tape)
Interview with Sami al-Arian October 6, 2002.

Sami al-Arian has now been in jail for more than a year and his trial is set to begin in January 2005.

Linda Moreno, lawyer for Sami al-Arian, who is imprisoned and awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder.

LISTEN TO AUDIO
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/09/144245