All Entries Tagged With: "Sami Al-Arian"

When Your Father Is Accused of Terrorism

For a while, the phone stopped ringing. Not completely—reporters called, but many old friends did not.

The Verdict’s Sixth Anniversary/The Al-Arian Trial on YouTube‏

December 6, 2005 shall be remembered as a great day in which justice triumphed over intolerance and the First Amendment reigned supreme. On that day, a jury of twelve ordinary citizens refused to return a single guilty verdict against Dr. Sami Al-Arian and three other Palestinian men accused of terrorism in one of the most high profile cases to emerge out of the highly charged atmosphere after 9/11.

 

Notwithstanding the concerted efforts by the government to instill fear into the public hearts and minds during the trial, coupled with an elaborate intimidation campaign against Arabs and Muslims in the Tampa Bay area, an American jury was able to sit through a six-month trial and uphold the Constitution, despite being subjected to “a mountain of evidence,” as one prosecutor referred to the government’s case. In reality, this “evidence” encompassed activities protected by the First Amendment: speech, beliefs, thoughts, opinions, and associations.

 

Remarkably, much of the media coverage blurred the line between factual reporting and advocating for the prosecution, disregarding journalistic standards in a disgraceful and sensationalist display that resulted in a trial in the court of public opinion that was more akin to a lynch mob. In spite of these pressures, the courtroom jury was, in the words of one juror, able to see through the “smoke and mirrors” displayed by the government.

 

In his statement a few months later, Dr. Al-Arian thanked the jury for its “remarkable courage and efforts in the service of justice” in the case. He further stated that serving justice through “an impartial and conscientious jury” is how America could “win the hearts and minds of people across the globe, especially in the Arab and Muslim world.” By rendering a just verdict, the jury understood Martin Luther King’s famous statement, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

 

Dr. Al-Arian’s defense did not present a single witness despite eighty witnesses offered by the government. The First Amendment was his only defense, a position validated by the jury’s verdict, and the reason why this decision to uphold one of the most sacred founding principles of the United State should be remembered every year on this day. We call upon all First Amendment advocates and people of conscience to honor the First Amendment every year on this day. It protects all of us.

 

On this day, this great jury stood for the primacy of free speech over government censorship and criminalization of speech. As the former Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, once said, “Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.”

 

Some time ago the National Liberty Fund (NLF) released a video interview with Ron, a member of the jury who demonstrated his courage in this trial. It is an eyeopening account that presents an inside look at how the jury deliberated and reached its decision for acquittal on major terrorism charges despite thousands of highly inflammatory and prejudicial assertions made by the prosecution.

 

The interview is featured on YouTube in 3 parts: Part I, Part II, and Part III. The video-interview (total: 26 min.) appears courtesy of Line Halvorsen and Jan Dalchow, the filmmakers behind USA VS. AL-ARIAN, the award-winning Norwegian documentary.

 

But despite the acquittals and the conclusion of the case between the government and Dr. A-Arian through a plea deal, the case is not over yet after almost nine years (5 1/2 of which were spent in prison including 43 months in solitary confinement) of unjustly persecuting the Muslim Palestinian professor.

 

Since September 2008 Dr. Al-Arian has been under house arrest in the Washington DC area pending a ruling by the presiding judge of the dismissal motion of the unjust contempt charges brought against him by the government.

 

On this day we also remember Thomas Jefferson, one of the great founding fathers of this nation who understood the true meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but above all the inviolability of justice when he said: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” To honor his words, we must not rest until all those who have been denied justice or continue to await justice will finally receive it.

WASHINGTON DC – Dec. 6, 2011

 go to: www.freesamialarian.com

USA vs Al-Arian – on freedom of speech and political persecution

Source

”USA vs AL-ARIAN” is an intimate family portrait that documents the American-Muslim family Al-Arian’s desperate attempt to fight terrorism charges leveled by the US Government.

In February 2003, university professor and pro-Palestinian civil rights activist Sami Al-Arian was arrested in Tampa, Florida, charged with providing material support to a terror organization. For two-and-a-half years he was held in solitary confinement, denied basic privileges and given limited access to his attorneys. While the Bush administration considered this a landmark case in its campaign against international terrorism, Sami Al-Arian claims he was targeted in an attempt to silence his political views.

The film follows Sami Al-Arian’s wife Nahla and their five children throughout his 6 month-long trial. It is an intimate family portrait that documents the strain brought on by the trial, a battle waged both in court and in the media. In the film a tight-knit family unravels before our very eyes as trial preparations, strategy and spin consume their lives. This is a nightmare come to life, as a man is prosecuted for his beliefs rather than his actions.

The film raises questions on whether it is possible for a man like Sami Al-Arian to receive a fair trial in the United States given the current hostile environment against Muslims and the strong US support of Israel. It presents democracy in a new light in a post-9/11 culture of fear, where “security measures” trump free speech and punishment is meted out in the name of protection. It is an example of how the American government’s hunt for terrorists is a struggle that can be seen from multiple angles.

Engaged lobbyist

Dr. Sami Al-Arian has been a tireless voice for freedom and justice at home and around the world. He helped empower the Muslim community and was dedicated to raising awareness in the US about the plight of the Palestinians. He organized voter registration drives, supported candidates for public office, and lobbied numerous policymakers. Dr. Al-Arian attended briefings at the White House and Justice Department, advised several members of Congress, and met both Presidents Clinton and Bush.

The evidence presented against Dr. Al-Arian consisted mostly of wiretapped phone calls, his political speeches and his writings. During the trial, the US government brought witnesses to terror attacks in Israel, but did not provide any evidence directly tying Dr. Al-Arian to terrorism or to any criminal activity. There was no evidence that any violent act took place, or that any violent act was ever planned to take place in the United States. The jury did not convict him on any of the counts against him.

The Trailer

Watch the Documentary Online For Free

Will the Persecution of Political Prisoner Sami Al-Arian Finally Come to an End?

Source | By Chris Hedges

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema is scheduled to issue a ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia at the end of April in a case that will send a signal to the Muslim world and beyond whether the American judicial system has regained its independence after eight years of flagrant manipulation and intimidation by the Bush administration. Brinkema will decide whether the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian, held for over six years in prison and under house arrest in Virginia since Sept 2, is guilty or innocent of two counts of criminal contempt.

Brinkema’s ruling will have ramifications that will extend far beyond Virginia and the United States. The trial of Al-Arian is a cause célèbre in the Muslim world. A documentary film was made about the case in Europe. He has become the poster child for judicial abuse and persecution of Muslims in the United States by the Bush administration. The facts surrounding the trial and imprisonment of the former university professor have severely tarnished the integrity of the American judicial system and made the government’s vaunted campaign against terrorism look capricious, inept and overtly racist.

Government lawyers made wild assertions that showed a profound ignorance of the Middle East and exposed a gross stereotyping of the Muslim world. It called on the FBI case agent, for example, who testified as an expert witness that Islamic terrorists were routinely smuggled over the border from Iran into Syria, apparently unaware that Syria is separated from Iran by a large land mass called Iraq. The transcripts of the case against Al-Arian — which read like a bad Gilbert and Sullivan opera — are stupefying in their idiocy. The government wiretaps picked up nothing of substance; taxpayer dollars were used to record and transcribe 21,000 hours of banal chatter, including members of the Al-Arian household ordering pizza delivery. During the trial the government called 80 witnesses and subjected the jury to inane phone transcriptions and recordings, made over a 10-year period, which the jury curtly dismissed as “gossip.” It would be comical if the consequences were not so dire for the defendant.

A jury, on Dec. 6, 2005, acquitted Dr. Al-Arian on eight of the counts in the superseding indictment after a six-month trial in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. On the 94 charges made against the four defendants, there were no convictions. Of the 17 charges against Al-Arian — including “conspiracy to murder and maim persons abroad” — the jury acquitted him of eight and was hung on the rest. The jurors, who voted 10 to 2 to acquit on the remaining charges, could not reach a unanimous decision calling for his full acquittal. Two others in the case, Ghassan Ballut and Sameeh Hammoudeh, were acquitted of all charges.

The trial result was a public relations disaster for the Bush White House and especially then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had personally announced the indictment and reportedly spent more than $50 million on the case. The government prosecutors threatened to retry Al-Arian. The Palestinian professor accepted a plea bargain that would spare him a second trial, agreeing that he had helped people associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad with immigration matters. It was a very minor charge given the high profile of the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida and the counterterrorism section of the Justice Department agreed to recommend to the judge the minimum sentence of 46 months. But U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr., who made a series of comments during the trial that seemed to condemn all Muslims, sentenced Al-Arian to the maximum 57 months. In referring to Al-Arian’s contention, for example, that he had only raised money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s charity for widows and orphans, the judge told the professor that “your only connection to orphans and widows is that you create them.”

I spent an afternoon with Dr. Al-Arian in his small apartment in Arlington, Va., on Friday. His lawyers have asked that he make no public statements about his case. But we talked widely about the Middle East, the new Israeli government, the siege of Gaza, our families and the changes he hopes will come with an Obama administration. He sat on a couch wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle, thankful to be with his wife and children after being shuttled between jails across the South and kept for 45 months in solitary confinement during his five-and-a-half-year ordeal. But he remains perplexed, as are many, by the gross miscarriage of justice and the ferocity of the government’s campaign to smear him with terrorism charges.

The government originally sought a standard cooperation provision as part of the final plea agreement. Al-Arian objected. He refused to plead guilty if he had to cooperate with the Justice Department. The Justice Department — including lawyers from the counterterrorism section of Main Justice — then negotiated to take out the cooperation provision in return for a longer sentence on the one count. That was the deal. He was to have been held in jail until April 2007 and then deported. But that never happened.

Right-wing ideologues, led by Assistant United States Attorney Gordon Kromberg, had no intention of letting him leave the country. Kromberg, a staunch supporter of Israel, arranged to keep Dr. Al-Arian behind bars even after he had finished serving his sentence. He blocked the deportation and subpoenaed Al-Arian to appear in Virginia to testify in an unrelated investigation of a Muslim think tank. This subpoena was a clear violation of the original plea bargain, and Al-Arian, heeding the advice of his lawyers, refused to give in to Kromberg’s demands. This led Kromberg to set in motion the newest charges of criminal contempt. Criminal contempt, bolstered by something called terrorism enhancement under Patriot Act II, is the only charge in U.S. statutes that does not carry a maximum penalty. The enhanced criminal contempt charge increases Al-Arian’s sentence from the usual 14 to 21 months for criminal contempt to a staggering 17 to 24 years for obstructing a state terrorism investigation. A handful of members of the House, including Jim Moran and Dennis Kucinich, have denounced Kromberg’s newest attempt to orchestrate a judicial lynching.

Kromberg, like many involved in the case, has also repeatedly made derogatory and insulting comments about Muslims. When Al-Arian’s lawyers asked Kromberg to delay the transfer of the professor to Virginia, for example, because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, they were told “if they can kill each other during Ramadan they can appear before the grand jury.” Kromberg, according to an affidavit signed by Al-Arian’s attorney, Jack Fernandez, also said: “I am not going to put off Dr. Al-Arian’s grand jury appearance just to assist in what is becoming the Islamization of America.”

Judge Brinkema, in one of the rare examples of judicial courage during this saga, defied the government to allow Al-Arian out on bail.

The case against Al-Arian, in the eyes of the grand inquisitors like Kromberg, is a battle against a culture and a religion that they openly denigrate and despise. This racism, the driving engine behind the campaign against Al-Arian, mocks the integrity of the American judicial system. Let us hope that in a few weeks we will witness a new era. Justice delayed is better than justice denied. We owe Dr. Al-Arian, and ourselves, a return to the rule of law.

John Sugg on why won’t the Tampa Trib tell you what people in Nashville know about Steve Emerson?

Source

Steven Emerson, a self-styled terrorism expert, is a guy who had a profound and caustic impact on Tampa for more than a decade. Emerson has had much less of an impact on another city, Nashville, although his corrosive brand of often-inaccurate smear jobs recently slithered into Tennessee.

Still, Nashville’s citizens know a whole lot more about Emerson than folks in Tampa, despite his relatively recent arrival on the Tennessee hate-Muslim soapbox, where he jostles for the limelight with loopy religious fanatics and just plain old-fashioned Southern bigots.

Why that imbalance of knowledge about Emerson? The answer lies in a horrible miscarriage of journalism committed over many years by The Tampa Tribune, a series of atrocities the Trib could easily correct by just providing a dash of fair and accurate reporting, something history indicates the newspaper won’t do. Nashville should be grateful that it has a newspaper, The Tennessean, which unlike the Trib will fearlessly dig out the truth.

In tandem with his vassal reporter at the Tampa Trib, Michael Fechter, Emerson waged a decade-long jihad against a professor at the University of South Florida, Sami Al-Arian, accused by Emerson and Fechter of being a terrorist mastermind. Emerson and Fechter were backed by a shadowy network of former federal agents and foreign spooks, notably a disinformation specialist for Israel’s ultra-right Likud party named Yigal Carmon and a controversial ex-FBI official named Oliver “Buck” Revell – and a lot of money whose origins have never been revealed.

However, where their information came from was clear. As the great Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz explained before Al-Arian’s 2005 federal trial: “Israel owns much of the copyright for the case; a well-informed source termed the prosecution an ‘American-Israeli co-production.’ The Americans are running the show, but behind the scenes it was the Israelis who for years collected material (and) transmitted information…” How did they transmit information? In part, via “secret evidence” slipped to our federales, evidence and accusers Al-Arian wasn’t allowed to confront (who needs that nasty old Sixth Amendment?). But reporters were also conduits for scurrilous “intelligence” claims. Fechter himself wrote that “former and current senior Israeli intelligence officials” loaded his stories with information. Those allegations, many ludicrous on their face, were rejected by a federal jury, despite a highly prejudiced judge and rulings that, if they had been issued against Martin Luther King Jr. would have prevented him from mentioning Jim Crow in his defense.

Over the years, while a Weekly Planet and Creative Loafing editor, I had a great deal of fun exposing Emerson, and the prevarications by Fechter and the federal government. I tried to put into context what the anti-Muslim crusaders were up to. I joined a rather elite cadre of journalists that had tangled with Emerson – including famed investigative reporters Seymour Hersh, Robert I. Friedman and Robert Parry, who provided me with insight into Emerson’s real agenda.

Emerson filed two bogus lawsuits against me, the Weekly Planet (AKA Creative Loafing) and an AP reporter who had told me about questions he had had over the provenance of a document Emerson gave the news service. We obtained a court order that would have forced Emerson to produce real proof of his allegations – and he knew we were digging into who he really was and who paid his bills – so he ran away from the fight he started; the good guys (me, for example) prevailed.

It’s noteworthy that a number of dispassionate analysts had observations similar to mine. New York University scholar Zachary Lockman, for example, (as quoted on “Right Web”) wrote in 2005: “[Emerson’s] main focus during the 1990s was to sound the alarm about the threat Muslim terrorists posed to the United States. By the end of that decade Emerson was describing himself as a ‘terrorist expert and investigator’ and ‘Executive Director, Terrorism Newswire, Inc.’ Along the way, critics charged, Emerson had sounded many false alarms, made numerous errors of fact, bandied accusations about rather freely, and ceased to be regarded as credible by much of the mainstream media . The September 11 attacks seemed to bear out Emerson’s warnings, but his critics might respond that even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day.”

Again, it’s sadly significant that the Trib never even provided such mild doses of context about its primary source, Emerson, in its inflammatory, intentionally erroneous and misleading, and often racist diatribes against Al-Arian. The Trib still gives Emerson ink – never questioning his claims and guilt-by-association-and-innuendo tactics, and never vetting his background, associations, financing and motives.

Some insight on Emerson’s millions has now been provided by The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, citing the Tennessean’s reports, on Oct. 26 awarded Emerson his nightly “Worst Person in the World” citation. Olbermann expressed regret that the network had previously used Emerson as a chattering head on terrorism topics. (Similarly, CBS did not renew its contract with Emerson after he claimed that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing had “a Middle Eastern trait” because it was carried out “with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible.” That was a big “Oops.”)

The Tennessean reported that Emerson collects money through a non-profit, the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, and then funnels that money to his for-profit SAE (as in Steven A. Emerson) Productions. Quoting Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog group, the Nashville paper reported: “Basically, you have a nonprofit acting as a front organization, and all that money going to a for-profit. It’s wrong. This is off the charts.”

That little bit of information on Emerson, contained in one report, is far more than the Trib told you about Emerson over a decade – despite Emerson using the Trib to provoke a legal firestorm that is still ongoing.

You do recall the firestorm, right? Emerson and Fechter launched a series of series of attacks on Muslims. No amount of hyperbole and vitriol-spewing was considered excessive by the Trib or Emerson. Fechter, for example, darkly hinted that the FBI found documents about MacDill Air Force Base among Al-Arian’s papers, insinuating some dastardly design. Nope. Al-Arian had twice been invited to speak to large groups of military and intelligence officers, and the sinister documents were, well, just the hand-out materials. Fechter, following the lead of his guru, Emerson, also tried to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on Arabs, an egregiously false story the Trib has never seen fit to correct. Emerson, meanwhile, said in February 1996 that Palestinian advocates at USF were involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Emerson promised proof “in the near term.” The proof never came, and the Justice Department said it had no records supporting the allegation.

You think the Trib might have called Emerson on that one? Hahaha.

The former head of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tampa, Robert O’Neill, twice concluded during the 1990s there was no evidence to prosecute Al-Arian, according to my multiple sources in the Justice Department. I don’t like quoting anonymous sources so I’ll be clear: O’Neill, now the U.S. Attorney for Florida’s Middle District, himself told me he had looked at the evidence and found no reason to prosecute. In 1998, the then FBI counterterrorism chief Bob Blitzer also told me “no federal laws were broken” by the Tampa Muslims.

Yet, after 9/11, propelled by hate-Muslim diatribes from Bill O’Reilly (who had been funneled highly slanted information by Fechter) and the fear by Jeb Bush that the University of South Florida would conclude a settlement with Al-Arian that would prove embarrassing to the Bushite regimes in Washington and Tallahassee, the federal government indicted Al-Arian. The trial concluded with the government failing to win a single guilty verdict against Al-Arian or his co-defendants, an immense disaster for the Bush Justice Department.

Al-Arian later plea bargained in order to preclude another trial on counts on which the jury didn’t reach a verdict – although notably no more than two jurors felt he was guilty on even those “hung” counts. Al-Arian’s plea bargain stipulated that he had had no involvement in terrorist activities. Rather, he had provided some minor support to people who might have become terrorists, although it’s clear from the trial that any such activities by Al-Arian occurred when they were legal. The plea agreement supposedly ended all business between Al-Arian and the federal government. However, due to legal chicanery by a rogue federal prosecutor in Virginia, Gordon Kromberg – who has been called a doppelganger of Emerson – Al-Arian remains entangled in federal courts and on house arrest.

According to my federal sources, the Al-Arian case cost our government at least $50 million, and, no, the Trib and Emerson didn’t offer to pay part of the bill (you and I had that honor). And, with so many FBI agents chasing a guy whose “guilt” was mostly in exercising his First Amendment rights, the FBI missed another fellow flitting around Florida, a real terrorist with blood on his mind, Mohammed Atta.

The final chapters in the Trib’s pogroms against Muslims had a sadly humorous angle. Fechter, who had long been a tool of Emerson’s, finally got slightly honest and went to work for his mentor. And Fechter dumped his wife and children and shacked up with one of the federal prosecutors who tried Al-Arian. I don’t recall where Fechter got his journalism training, but he must have skipped the classes on journalistic objectivity and not sleeping with your sources.

So, The Tennessean’s articles might have provided an excellent opportunity for the Trib to revisit and maybe heal a terrible wound it was complicit in inflicting in Tampa. On Friday, I asked Trib Managing Editor Richard “Duke” Maas if he had such an inclination – heck, I inquired, aren’t you interested in what The Tennessean wrote about a guy who had so much impact on Tampa and your newspaper? Well, not really, Maas responded, sounding more irritated than journalistically curious. He added that Fechter had left the newspaper, which I gather meant he felt the Trib was thereby absolved of responsibility.

If you happen to have a spare backbone, you might send it to the pathetic folks at The Tampa Tribune.

John F. Sugg was editor of the Weekly Planet in the 1990s, and group senior editor of Creative Loafing Newspapers until he retired in 2008.

Judge cancels hearing in Dr. Al-Arian’s Case

Alexandria, VA – October 28, 2010

On the eve of the hearing in the case of Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia issued an order to cancel it.

Last month the government filed a motion requesting Judge Brinkema to deny the pending defense motion, filed 18 months ago, to dismiss the criminal contempt charges against Dr. Al-Arian. A hearing that was set for tomorrow to decide on the pending motions has now been canceled.

The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace sincerely thanks all of Dr. Al-Arian supporters all over the world for their tremendous outpouring of love and support throughout this ordeal and for keeping him and his family in their thoughts and prayers.

We are also very grateful for the many friends who made the trip from as far away as Tampa, Florida and New York City to be there at the hearing and for the many dozens from the Washington DC area who have pledged to show their support and attend the hearing.

If there is any new development in the case, the TBCJP will immediately issue a press release.

If there is any new development in the case, the TBCJP will immediately issue a press release.

Dr. Al-Arian is being represented by a distinguished legal team led by George Washington Law professor Jonathan Turley and P.J. Meitl of Bryan Cave.

For previous press releases go to: www.freesamialarian.com
[For Case Background Click Here]

The Case of Dr. Sami Al-Arian

www.freesamialarian.com
There have been several hearings in the past, but this is considered the most important.

Washington, DC – October 13, 2010

On Feb. 20, 2003, former Attorney General John Ashcroft declared in a nationally televised news conference, carried on all major media outlets, that Dr. Al-Arian was one of the most dangerous people in the world.

 

Based on these assertions, Dr. Al-Arian was held insolitary confinement for 43 months during and after his trial, despite the fact that he had never waived his right to a speedy trial. Amnesty International protestedthe conditions of his detention, calling them “gratuitously punitive.”

No Guilty Verdicts

On Dec. 6, 2005, a Florida jury acquitted Dr. Al-Arian on eight counts, and deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquittal on the remaining nine counts, leading Time magazine to declare the case “one of the Justice Department’s most embarrassing legal setbacks since 9/11.”

While the government presented 80 witnesses including 21 from Israel, Dr. Al-Arian rested his case without calling a single witness basing his defense on the first amendment. Indeed, much of the government’s evidence presented to the jury during the six-month trial were speeches Dr. Al-Arian delivered, lectures he presented, articles he wrote, magazines he edited, books he owned, conferences he convened, rallies he attended, interviews he gave, news he heard, and websites he never even accessed.

In fact, several websites, presented to the jury as evidence, were created by anonymous individuals, after his arrest, while he was awaiting trial in solitary confinement in a federal prison. It was therefore no surprise that, with almost 100 counts between all defendants, the jury did not return a single guilty verdict on any count. Two other defendants were totally acquitted on all counts.

A Plea Deal to End Persecution

In April 2006, in an effort to spare his family another long, financially draining, and excruciating trial, Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty to violating a 1995 presidential executive order, by providing immigration services in the 1990s to persons associated with the PIJ, a Palestinian organization listed on the U.S. forbidden organizations (terrorist) list. In return, he agreed to immediate deportation from the U.S. despite more than three decades residing in the country. The details of the plea deal illustrated the true nature of the political persecution of this case.

The services admitted in the plea deal were: 1) hiring a lawyer for his brother-in-law during his immigration battle in the late 1990s; 2) sponsoring a Palestinian historian in 1994 to conduct research in the U.S.; and 3) withholding information from a U.S. journalist during a 1995 interview. There was no evidence or admission in the plea deal that showed any illegal financial transactions or material support.  Although Dr. Al-Arian was promised a prompt release in exchange for his plea, the U.S. government later admitted that, at the time the plea deal was signed in 2006, federal prosecutors were secretly preparing to call Dr. Al-Arian before a grand jury in Virginia, in a sign of their complete disregard for the overarching purpose of the plea agreement, which was to end any and all business between Dr. Al-Arian and the U.S. government.

 

Prosecutorial Trap

In what many observers believed was an attempt to seek retribution for the colossal defeat of the government’s case in Florida, Dr. Al-Arian was called to testify before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) in Alexandria three times between the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2008. The call to the grand jury was a classic prosecutorial trap in which agreeing to testify would result in a charge of perjury, while a refusal to testify would result in a charge of contempt of court. When Dr. Al-Arian refused to testify, invoking his right under the plea deal, he was held for over a year on civil contempt charges. In June 2008, he was charged with criminal contempt.

After five and a half years in prison, most of which was served under deplorable conditions in solitary confinement, and during which Dr. Al-Arian underwent three hunger-strikes that lasted several months requiring hospitalization, Dr. Al-Arian was released in September 2008 under house arrest, where he has spent the last 25 months awaiting the outcome of the case. 

In its March 2009 filing, the government made several admissions regarding the plea deal, namely, they affirmed its essence of non-cooperation, but still argued that it should not be taken into account.

Moreover,the EDVA prosecutors (as admitted in the government filing) began the process to compel Dr. Al-Arian’s testimony at the same time the DOJ was negotiating with his attorneys. This conduct prompted Judge Leonie Brinkema of the EDVA, in a Feb. 2009 hearing, to call into question the DOJ’s integrity, stating “I think the integrity of the Justice Department and the integrity of the criminal justice plea bargaining process is too significant to just let it die on the vine given the nature of the record before this Court.”

In an earlier hearing held in Tampa, Florida in Nov. 2006, Florida prosecutor Terry Zitek, stated in no uncertain terms that the cooperation clause was deliberately removed: “It’s not there, and we’re [the government] not…complaining that the defendant Al-Arian has refused to cooperate.”

Furthermore,lead government prosecutor Gordon Kromberg of the EDVA, conceded in a court hearing on Feb. 5, 2009, that the government had in fact removed the cooperation clause from the plea bargain upon the insistence of Dr. Al-Arian. But Mr. Kromberg tried to argue that the EDVA was not bound by the terms of the agreement. However, Judge Brinkema pointed out that the plea agreement was concluded with the DOJ as a whole, and that the DOJ could not be allowed to “compartmentalize itself,” and that the understanding of the plea agreement is indeed “at the heart of the case.”

This undisputed fact raised a number of questions about the government’s conduct in the case, including: Why would the Florida prosecutors remove the cooperation clause from the plea agreement unless there was a clear promise that Dr. Al-Arian would not be compelled to cooperate or testify? Dr. Al-Arian’s then attorneys submitted affidavits saying that cooperation with the government was non-negotiable.

 (Click here for the first declaration and here for the second by Dr. Al-Arian’s attorneys.)

 

After the government defied the judge three times by refusing to provide information regarding the plea negotiations, Judge Brinkema ruled in March 2009 in favor of the defense request to file a motion to dismiss the charges against Dr. Al-Arian. Her decision at the time had followed the new revelation that the Florida prosecutors were opposed to the efforts by the Virginia prosecutors to call Dr. Al-Arian to testify. After the parties briefed the court in April 2009, Judge Brinkema issued an order stating that she would rule in the future without further hearings. The new motion for a new hearing by the government is to force the judge to rule on the pending dismissal motion.

 

The Persecution of Dr. Al-Arian on Film

In 2007, Norwegian filmmakers released a documentary film entitled USA vs. Al-Arian. The award-winning film chronicles the story of Dr. Al-Arian and his family

during and after his Florida trial, illustrating the political nature of his prosecution and the state of the U.S. justice system under the Patriot Act. Since 2003, Dr. Al-Arian’s case has attracted the interest of major civil liberties  and human rights organizations in the U.S. and around the world. Peter Erlinder, a law professor, and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, said: “The prosecution of Dr. Al-Arian was a blatant attempt to silence political speech and dissent in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy. The nature of the political persecution of this case has been demonstrated throughout all its aspects, not only during the trial and the never-ending right-wing media onslaught, but also after the stunning defeat of the government in 2005, and its ill-advised abuse of the grand jury system thereafter.”

 

 Striving for Justice

In August 2008, the late Howard Zinn declared: “I thought that [Dr. Al-Arian’s case] was an outrageous violation of human rights, both from a constitutional point of view and as a simple test of justice.” Moreover,

 

Dr. Mel Underbakke of Friends of Human Rights, who has traveled the country screening the documentary and educating the public about the dangers of the Patriot Act, said: “The unjust persecution of Dr. Al-Arian should concern all Americans. History has taught us that when the rights of the minority are violated by the government for political purposes, then the rights of all Americans would be eroded. That’s why thousands of civil libertarians and human rights activists in the U.S. and around the world, have been mortified by the injustice suffered by Dr. Al-Arian and his family and have rallied in their defense.”

 

When asked about how her father was doing during his house arrest, Laila Al-Arian, a journalist, said: “Our family is very grateful to have been with him since his release. He’s been a guiding influence in our lives. He is also most appreciative of the tremendous support he’s been receiving nationwide and around the world.”

 

A Voice for Freedom and Dialogue

 

Dr. Al-Arian reiterated his strong belief in the importance of dialogue and education in the only public speech he has given since his release on home confinement, delivered in June 2009 through Skype to the Global Forum on Freedom of Expression in Norway.

 He said: “Despite my imprisonmnent and experience, my faith in dialogue and commitment to freedom of expression, will never waiver. It’s been my life long passion. This experience taught us that when the American people are educated and empowered with truth, they respond positively and display a sense of fairness. I firmly believe that through education and civil engagement people change. Little by little they will understand the plight of the Palestinians and the importance of defending civil liberties and human rights. Increasingly, people realize that no democracy can survive at the altar of sacrificing free speech or dissent.” 

 

He continued: ” Our charge today is to pledge to defend the rights of our most vulnerable members of our world community: the tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience around the world, those who are under occupation or under siege, the millions terrorized by dictators and warlords, the poor and the sick, the uneducated and the exploited, the children, the abused women, and the elderly. Each one of these classes of people needs a voice and an advocate. They need to gain their freedom to realize a life of dignity and peace. So whether we recognize it or not, we are at the forefront of this struggle for their freedom.  Let your collective conscience speak on their behalf.” He then concluded: “One cannot achieve peace without realizing justice, realize justice without seeking out the truth, seek out the truth without practicing freedom. So living and thinking free is the root of achieving peace in our world.”

For more information and updates see:www.freesamialarian.com

Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar: A Tale Of Two Palestinian Brothers-in-law

[Sami Al-Arian poses for a picture with, then Presidential Candidate, George W. Bush (just prior to the contentious election of 2000). Besides the obvious, this picture is also interesting because it was taken exactly seven years ago. The picture also includes Al-Arian’s family and a smiling Laura Bush (arm placed warmly on what appears to be the shoulder of Al-Arian’s son).] [Source]

By Richard H. Curtiss

The story of Sami Al-Arian and his best friend and brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, is a saga of tragedy and cruel fate. There is no moral. There is no villain. There is no hero. What is needed, however, is relief from a nightmare that otherwise might never end.

Sami is a Palestinian who was born in Kuwait and whose family later moved to Cairo, where Sami’s father owned a small clothing store. He put all of his limited means into his eldest son’s U.S. education. When Sami finished college he went on to earn a Ph.D. degree and soon found a position with the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, with an enrollment of 31,000.

Meanwhile Sami’s friend Mazen Al-Najjar went with his Palestinian family to Saudi Arabia. Later Mazen arrived in the United States on a visitor’s visa. The two friends now had become brothers-in-law, with Sami’s marriage to Mazen’s sister, Nahla.

By this time Mazen, too, had a Ph.D. degree and began teaching at the same university as Sami. Mazen eventually had three daughters, and Sami had five children.

Together the two friends set up a mosque in Tampa, along with two charitable and educational organizations. These were Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), which raised money for orphans, and World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which sponsored scholarships. They published an Arabic journal and held conferences, some of the speakers at which had radical connections.

Then fate took an unexpected turn for the worse. The Immigration and Nationalization Service arrested Mazen because he had not been able to regularize his immigration status, due to the fact that he was Palestinian and therefore had no nationality of record.

By this time, with three American citizen daughters and a wife, and no other violations of any kind, it should have been simple enough to change Mazen’s status. Typically in such cases, immigration authorities only require character references, which can easily be found. If all else fails, a friendly congressman can usually help. Mazen is a Palestinian, however—which always presents complications.

With the best intentions in the world, Sami went public to defend Mazen. In retrospect, it probably was not a wise decision. That is because Sami already had become involved with a related problem having to do with another USF professor, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah. Two years after he joined the university faculty, Shallah abruptly moved to Syria to work for the Syria-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.

Sami and Mazen’s problems became intertwined with that of the Jihad member. Like a bulldog, the media had a story and wouldn’t let go.

It should have been simple enough to change Mazen’s status.

“Self-styled” investigative journalist Steven Emerson also had taken up the case, charging that Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar were part of a conspiracy to raise funds for terrorist groups. The Tampa Tribune received sensationalist allegations that provided great copy. Other Florida papers took sides but were unable to resolve the conflicting claims for many months.

All along, Sami and his wife, Nahla, worked tirelessly on behalf of Mazen and his wife, Fedaa. It was at this point that I, along with a number of other Americans, came one by one to Florida to attest to Mazen’s good character and called for amelioration of the circumstances in which Mazen was now entangled. There were many witnesses who helped in any way they could. Collections were taken up, some from members of his mosque and others from supporters who were concerned with Mazen and his family’s well being.

I wrote about the family’s plight and also asked a friend, former Mossad case officer and author Victor Ostrovsky, to help publicize the fact that there was no trace of anti-Semitism involved in the Florida case. Finally, threeyears after Mazen’s arrest, former Attorney General Janet Reno resolved the case in Mazen’s favor and released him, and Mazen at last was able to rejoin his family.

Then came Sept. 11. Two and a half months later, on Nov. 24, Mazen Al-Najjar left his apartment to get quarters to do the laundry. His wife, Fedaa, a pharmacist, was at work. His three daughters were asleep. A dozen INS agents were awaiting his return. They had a court order for his deportation.

Mazen ran and the agents wrestled him to the ground. He later said he had “panicked,” and had only wanted to tell his daughters goodbye. Then, once again, Mazen was incarcerated.

This time he was sent to a federal maximum-security prison 70 miles from Tampa and put into solitary confinement. The government alleged that Mazen had “ties to terrorist organizations” and had leadership in “front groups” that raised money for the Palestinians.

Again Mazen’s case was in the news, not only in Florida but also around the world. Washington Post reporter Richard Leiby has written a fair, in-depth report on the two Palestinians, published in the paper’s July 28 edition.

Mazen has stood up reasonably well, Leiby wrote, although he is a man of retiring nature and has desperately missed his wife and family and their once-a-week visits. This time, however, it is clear that Mazen is just about at the end of his rope. His luxuriant once-black hair has turned white. How much longer could anyone withstand such treatment without breaking down completely?

Catch-22 All Over Again

Meanwhile, once again, the case is hung up in a “Catch-22”-type impasse. The U.S. government wants to deport Mazen, but no country will receive him. Since Mazen has no place to go, logic would dictate that the U.S. government either prove that Mazen has committed a crime or release him.

The U.S. government, however, says it has “secret evidence” which cannot be divulged. So what is Mazen to do? He cannot prove his innocence if no one will tell him the charges so he can defend himself.

In a just or logical world the answer would be simple: Let Mazen rejoin his family and work to help support his wife and daughters. Unfortunately the matter has become extremely politicized, with Emerson and other Palestinian-haters all too quick to announce new allegations and thus create new headlines.

In a letter addressed to The Washington Post’s Leiby, Mazen wrote from his cell, “Government officials know that I have no ‘terrorist’ connections of any kind, but it is hard for them to retreat from previous assertions after seven years.”

In an interview with Leiby, Vincent M. Cannistraro, former chief of CIA counterterrorism operations, said that, based on his own sources, the professor never was involved with terrorist attacks.

One solution would be to call on Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene on behalf of the Al-Najjar family. That option, too, may have been pre-empted, however, because Jeb Bush inexplicably has become involved in calling for Sami Al-Arian’s dismissal from USF. Sami Al-Arian, a tenured professor of computer science, has been on paid leave since Sept. 27. USF president Judy Genshaft is trying to fire Sami because he received death threats in the wake of Sept. 11, and a Fox network talk show re-aired the old disproved accusations. This, in turn, has prompted the American Association of University Professors to demand Al-Arian’s return to his tenured position.

Ironically, members of the Al-Arian family have made progress in their own right. For example, a USA Today summer internship went to Sami Al-Arian’s daughter, Laila, a senior at Georgetown University.

The first Al-Arian son, Abdullah, had his own encounter with George W. Bush in Florida during the 2000 Bush presidential campaign. When Sami, his wife and family were pictured with Bush at a campaign stop, the then-candidate, who is in the habit of nicknaming people he likes, called Abdullah “Big Dude,” based on his lanky size.

Early last year Sami Al-Arian was one of a group invited to the White House by Karl Rove, Bush’s campaign strategist. Eight days later Abdullah, who was interning in Rep. David Bonior’s office, arrived for a White House meeting to discuss the president’s “faith-based initiative.” After the delegation was seated, a secret service agent inexplicably insisted that Abdullah leave. (S