[News] Daughter of Sami Al-Arian Blasts Media Coverage

Thu May 4 11:58:37 EDT 2006

Daughter of Sami Al-Arian Says Family 
"Devastated" by Father's Continued Imprisonment, Blasts Media Coverage

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/03/145225

The case of Palestinian professor and activist 
Sami Al-Arian took another turn this week when a 
federal judge in Florida sentenced him to another 
year and a half in prison. We speak with his 
daughter, Laila Al-Arian, his attorney, Linda 
Moreno and journalist John Sugg who has been 
closely following the case. [includes rush transcript]

----------
The case of Palestinian professor and activist 
Sami al-Arian took another turn this week when a 
federal judge in Florida sentenced him to another year and a half in prison.

Al-Arian has been at the center of one of the 
most closely watched - and controversial - post 
9/11 prosecutions. He was arrested in February 
2003 and accused of being a leader of the 
militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The government's case against Al-Arian included 
11 years of FBI wiretaps and searches, three 
years of trial preparation by federal 
prosecutors, millions of dollars in costs and a 
six-month trial that ended last December.

At the end of it all, the jury failed to return a 
single guilty verdict on any of the 53 criminal 
counts brought against Al-Arian and three 
co-defendants. One of those co-defendants - 
Sameeh Hammoudeh - will join us on the phone from 
a Florida jail in a few minutes. He remains 
imprisoned despite being acquitted of all the 
charges against him. Al-Arian himself was 
acquitted on eight counts and the jury hung on nine others.

Last month, Al-Arian signed a plea agreement with 
prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser version 
of one of the deadlocked charges, namely that he 
helped members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad with 
immigration and legal matters at a time before 
the State Department designated it a terrorist group.

At his sentencing on Monday, US District Judge 
James Moody ignored the recommendation of 
prosecutors and defense attorneys for a lower 
sentence and gave Al-Arian as much prison time as 
possible under the plea deal - 57 months, followed by deportation.

With credit for time served, Al-Arian will spend 
another 18 months behind bars. He has been in 
prison for over three years now, much of it in solitary confinement.

It is not clear where the government would deport 
Al-Arian who is a Palestinian born in Kuwait and 
raised mostly in Egypt. He has lived in the 
United States for the past 30 years and holds 
permanent residency status. His five children 
were born in the US and are all American 
citizens. Today, one of them joins us in our 
firehouse studio, Lailia Al-Arian is Sami 
Al-Arian's eldest daughter. We are also joined by 
Al-Arian's attorney, Linda Moreno and journalist 
John Sugg who has been closely following the case.

    * Laila Al-Arian, eldest daughter of Sami 
al-Arian. She is a journalism student at Columbia University.
    * Linda Moreno, attorney for Sami al-Arian.
    * John Sugg, senior editor for Creative 
Loafing, an Atlanta-based alternative weekly 
newspaper. He has closely followed the Sami Al-Arian for the past 10 years.
    * - Website: <http://www.johnsugg.com>JohnSugg.com

Previous coverage: 
<http://tinyurl.com/n3mj7>Jailed Palestinian 
Professor Sami Al-Arian to Be Deported After 
Prosecutors Fail to Convict Him on a Single 
Charge <http://tinyurl.com/p6qre>Jury Acquits 
Jailed Palestinian Professor of Several Charges 
in Major Blow to Bush Administration 
<http://tinyurl.com/946q8>Jailed Palestinian 
Prof. Sami Al-Arian Dominates Florida Senate Race
<http://tinyurl.com/7fgd2>The Case of Sami Al-Arian
<http://tinyurl.com/bmajn>Outspoken Palestinian 
Professor Sami Al-Arian Indicted Yesterday By 
Ashcroft On Charges of Material Support to 
Terrorists <http://tinyurl.com/7t5ok>INS Arrests 
a Palestinian Teacher in Florida for Supposed 
Involvement with Terrorist Organizations

----------
RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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more...

AMY GOODMAN: It’s not clear where the government 
would deport Al-Arian to. He is Palestinian, born 
in Kuwait and raised mostly in Egypt. He’s lived 
in the United States for the past 30 years and 
holds permanent residency status. His five 
children were born in the United States. They’re 
all American citizens. We're joined in our 
Firehouse studio by one of them. Laila Al-Arian 
is Sami’s eldest daughter. She is just about to 
graduate from Columbia University’s School of 
Journalism. In a studio in Tampa, we're joined by 
Linda Moreno, Sami Al-Arian's attorney. And we're 
also joined on the phone by John Sugg, senior 
editor for Creative Loafing, an Atlanta-based 
alternative weekly newspaper, who has closely 
followed the Al-Arian case for the past ten years.

We will begin with Laila Al-Arian. Can you 
describe what happened the day of the sentencing? You were there?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Yes, I was. Basically we all went 
in, and there was this air of reconciliation. 
Everyone was really expecting a swift resolution 
to this painful ordeal. And my father gave a very 
beautiful speech, talking about his faith in the 
democratic system and the judicial system and how 
it was reinforced throughout this process. Our 
lawyer, Linda Moreno, also spoke very eloquently 
and asked that the judge give my father time 
served and release him. And, unfortunately, the 
judge kind of, you know, gave this tirade 
berating my father and mentioning things that 
were completely disproven in court, that the jury 
basically said were not true and acquitted my 
father of, and it was just a very disgraceful and 
just very undignified display.

AMY GOODMAN: Linda Moreno, can you amplify on 
what the judge said and the significance of not 
following the suggestion -- well, it’s not 
necessarily a surprise -- of defense attorney, you, but of the prosecution?

LINDA MORENO: It's important to note, Amy, that 
the plea agreement in this case that Dr. Al-Arian 
signed very specifically dealt with a 
watered-down version of a particular conspiracy 
count. And what's most important to remember 
about that is that the United States government 
in that plea agreement agreed that this was not a 
crime of violence, that there were no victims to 
the crime that Dr. Al-Arian was pleading guilty 
to, either direct or approximate. This, from the 
same United States Attorneys who had gotten up 11 
months earlier and had promised an American jury 
that they were going to prove beyond any 
reasonable doubt that Dr. Al-Arian was the North 
American head and the most powerful person of 
Islamic Jihad and a terrorist financier. So, they 
were very clear that what we were agreeing to had nothing to do with violence.

The jury repudiated all of the evidence of 
violence, which was at the heart of the 
government's case. And what's interesting is that 
after the sentencing, some of the jurors who sat 
on the trial were interviewed, and, in 
particular, one of the jurors who was hanging for 
a conviction said that she did not agree with the 
judge's comments and that she repudiated all of 
the violence in the case. So, the judge really 
went out on his own and ignored the jury, I think 
undermined the jury's verdict, ignored the 
recommendation of the United States government, 
and decided to base his sentencing on facts that 
were not proven and, I think, that were somewhat intemperate.

AMY GOODMAN: The language that the judge used 
sounds like it echoed some of what one of the 
government informants said on the stand, Linda Moreno.

LINDA MORENO: Well, one of the informants, this 
was a paid F.B.I. snitch, who was thoroughly 
discredited. In cross-examination, we got him to 
agree that he lied in various documents, resumes, 
applications for work. And he would describe 
these lies in colors of a rainbow. That was a 
white lie. That was a black lie. That was a red 
lie. So he was thoroughly discredited. But he 
made a very emotional statement when he was on 
the stand. He said that Dr. Al-Arian sent his son 
to Duke University, while he sent others to be 
blown up. We felt that the judge eerily 
paraphrased this discredited snitch on the stand, and it was of concern to us.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe your experience in 
the courtroom, Laila Al-Arian? You are both a 
daughter -- you're also graduating as a 
journalism student. You're a journalist. You were 
there with your two older siblings. Two of the 
younger children were not there. What was the 
courtroom like? Who comes to this trial day after day?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Well, we were grateful to have a 
great number of our supporters in the Tampa 
community, from both the Christian and the Muslim 
communities. And, you know, it was just a very -- 
like I said, just an air of reconciliation. And 
everyone was really looking forward to moving on 
with life. And, you know, we can even see it on 
the government's side, that they were ready to just put this all behind them.

AMY GOODMAN: Did your mother walk out of the 
courtroom as the judge was speaking?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: She did walk out, yes. I mean, we 
thought it was a very strong statement, but she 
just couldn't bear to listen to those horrible 
lies that he was spewing. So, it was -- I mean, 
it definitely wasn't easy to hear him lambaste my 
father and use those lies and smear him in that way.

AMY GOODMAN: John Sugg, could you put this in the 
context of the years that you have covered this 
case, reporting for Creative Loafing?

JOHN SUGG: Well, I think you have to look at 
what's gone on from the very beginning, and this 
started in 1994 with a television report by 
self-described terrorism expert Steve Emerson, 
who most people consider to be a front for 
Israel's Likud Party, in what he does. And I 
think that the effort has always been to silence 
Sami Al-Arian. I mean, Al-Arian, as you just 
said, the government couldn't prove anything 
about him of any real significance. What he did 
in the specifics of the plea agreement was so 
incidental to the government's claims as to be ridiculous.

I think it's also worth noting a few other 
things. Alberto Gonzales was in Tampa a few days 
before the sentencing. Paul Perez, the U.S. 
Attorney there, never made an appearance in court 
until sentencing, and then, of course, he raced 
for the TV cameras to declare a victory. I mean, 
I think that despite the -- my own opinion, I 
think the prosecution knew all along that this 
was going to be the outcome and agreed to a light 
sentence, knowing that the game plan would be 
different at the end. I mean, you know, Al-Arian 
has been silenced. He had something important to 
say. He tried to say it to everybody who would 
listen. And just like you were saying earlier in 
the show, at Brandeis University, only one side 
in this dispute gets an airing in America. And I 
think that that's very dangerous for our democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila Al-Arian?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: I completely agree with that. And 
even in the judge's comments during the 
sentencing, you know, his whole -- he kind of 
revealed his whole myopic view of the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in that there’s 
only Israeli victims and that all Palestinians 
are perpetrators and are terrorists. And it was 
just a very disturbing thing to hear coming from a federal judge.

JOHN SUGG: Well, you know, one thing that I heard 
during the closing arguments was when the 
prosecution introduced a document that mentioned 
U.N. Resolution 242, the resolution that calls 
for return to the borders, the original borders, 
the judge would not even allow the defense to 
explain to the jury what 242 meant. The judge 
would not let any testimony about the plight of 
the Palestinians be entered into this trial. Had 
Martin Luther King been on trial he would not 
have been able to have mentioned lynchings and 
Jim Crow. That's how ridiculous this courtroom was.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to John Sugg, senior 
editor for Creative Loafing, who has been 
following this trial -- it's a newspaper based in 
Tampa and Atlanta, an alternative weekly 
newspaper; Laila Al-Arian, daughter of Sami 
Al-Arian; as well as Linda Moreno, the attorney 
for Sami Al-Arian. Can you talk, Linda Moreno, 
exactly about the plea bargain? What did Sami Al-Arian plea guilty to?

LINDA MORENO: Dr. Al-Arian pled guilty to a 
conspiracy, which is an agreement, a conspiracy 
to provide services to associates of the Islamic 
Jihad. And essentially what he did, for the most 
part, was assist in the legal defense of his 
brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, in Mazen’s own 
unconstitutional detention hearing. He also 
helped associates, colleagues with immigration, 
with the immigration process. So this was a 
conspiracy charge that Dr. Al-Arian pled to. I 
will tell you that this plea agreement was 
something that was vigorously negotiated on both 
sides. And there were certain things that Sami 
Al-Arian would never have pled guilty to, the 
first of which was any responsibility whatsoever for any violence.

AMY GOODMAN: Weren't there a lot of images of violence shown during the trial?

LINDA MORENO: There were. The government was 
allowed to present videos of the bus bombings, 
live testimony of victims or survivors, 
eyewitnesses of certain bombings around the 
Occupied Territories. Indeed, Alisa Flato’s 
father testified. We did not cross-examine any of 
those witnesses, because our position was --

AMY GOODMAN: She was killed. She was killed in a suicide bombing attack?

LINDA MORENO: She was. And her father, who 
testifies apparently at many of these trials, 
sought to try to attribute some responsibility to 
Dr. Al-Arian through his testimony. So the 
government put on what they believed was their 
very potent, sexy, if you will, violent case, 
which the jury completely repudiated. The jury 
felt that Dr. Al-Arian had nothing to do with 
that violence. And we felt that was a very 
powerful message back to the government.

They still tried in the plea negotiations to have 
the violence inserted. In fact, at one point they 
wanted Dr. Al-Arian to plead guilty and pay 
restitution for all victims of violence, of 
conduct that was even uncharged. That was 
immediately, of course, rejected and rebuked. And 
Dr. Al-Arian was perfectly willing and able to 
represent himself, if need be, against the United 
States government, and I dare say he would have won the second time around.

This plea was an effort for closure, closure for 
the family, a family who has suffered and been 
traumatized, not only for the last three years, 
but really more for the last decade, with this 
campaign and witch-hunt that has gone on in the 
Tampa community, especially by the newspaper, the 
Tampa Tribune. So, this was an attempt for 
closure and, indeed, for reconciliation. It was 
unfortunate that it ended the way it did. But I 
want to tell you I was very proud of my client 
and his very moving statements to the court. We 
felt that we ended on a very positive note.

AMY GOODMAN: Linda Moreno, I want to thank you 
for being with us, lawyer for Sami Al-Arian, 
joining us from PBS station in Tampa, WEDU. Laila 
Al-Arian, stay with us, daughter of Sami 
Al-Arian, here in New York. She just flew up from 
the sentencing. John Sugg will remain with us on 
the line. And we'll be joined by the co-defendant 
of Sami Al-Arian. We'll be joined by Sameeh 
Hammoudeh, who remains in jail right now, is 
detained by ICE, Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement. And we'll speak with his daughter in Jordan.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Sameeh Hammoudeh joins us on the 
line right now from the Manatee County Jail in 
Bradenton, Florida. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: We will listen as carefully as we 
can. The line isn't very good. Why are you still in jail?

SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH: Well, because the whole case is 
based on what we can call an abuse of power. The 
United States government is not only violating 
the international laws regarding this, but they 
are violating and disregarding the civil rights 
and the human rights inside the United States. 
And my case is one of these violations.

And if I want to talk about my case, it's going 
to take me hours and hours, because the whole 
case was based on fabrication, violation – I mean 
fabrication, manipulation of facts, inventing 
even facts and events that did not even take 
place. The special agent who directed this case 
said things that never happened, never occurred. 
And he even – in his testimony, he changed my 
name to rhyme with the name of Sami Al-Arian. I 
mean, my name in Arabic is Sameeh, Sameeh 
Hammoudeh. So he changed my name to Hami, which 
rhymes with Sami, and whenever he was talking 
about Sami, he would combine me there, because he 
had no evidence whatsoever even to indict me.

AMY GOODMAN: Sameeh Hammoudeh, we're having 
trouble hearing you, so we're going to ask you to 
call back. But while we go through that, we are 
going to ask John Sugg to talk about your case, 
as well, one that he also has covered.

JOHN SUGG: Well, what you have is sort of a 
repeat of what started a lot of this case, and 
that was the illegal imprisonment of 
Palestinians. In the first case it was Sami 
Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, who 
was held for about four years on secret evidence. 
Interestingly, in that case, a federal judge, a 
federal immigration judge, twice reviewed the 
secret evidence and ordered Al-Najjar released, a 
decision that was ratified by Janet Reno. Twice, 
prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office 
recommended that there be no prosecution brought 
against Al-Arian and the other defendants, and 
they were ignored all under the Bush 
administration. The prosecution was brought.

I mean, you know, we're talking about an 
administration that, as the Boston Globe reported 
last week, where President Bush has broken 
something like 750 laws. I mean, this 
administration, you know, it defines as “illegal” 
what’s ever convenient, and that's what's 
happening to Hammoudeh right now. He should be 
out of jail. He should be allowed to leave the 
country. He's being held for no reason at all. 
The government cannot articulate a valid reason why he's being held.

AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined on the phone from 
Jordan by Weeam Hammoudeh, who is the daughter of 
Sameeh Hammoudeh. Can you talk about how you 
ended up – excuse me, speaking to us from 
Ramallah – how you ended up in Ramallah, when you 
were staying in Florida as your father remained in jail?

WEEAM HAMMOUDEH: Well, they had agreed to a 
separate plea deal, like you said earlier, and 
part of that was deportation, and it was supposed 
to happen after the terrorism trial ended and the 
sentencing was done, if there was any sentencing. 
In my father's case, obviously, since he was 
acquitted, there was no sentencing hearing. Then, 
we were given different dates. It kept getting 
postponed, saying that they needed clearance for 
my father and whatnot. And we were given three 
separate promises, promising us that he would be on an airplane with us.

And then, they gave us – at the end, they sent my 
mother a letter saying that we had until February 
9th to leave the country or that they would take 
whatever measures that were at their disposal 
against her. So we bought the tickets and left, 
and our lawyer and us, we were also told that my 
father would be joining us. So when we got to the 
airport, he didn't show up, and the immigration 
official that was there told us that he wouldn't 
be on the plane with us that day, but he would be joining us within 72 hours.

So we got to Jordan and stayed in Jordan for 
about a week, waiting for him, because we kept 
getting different promises. The last thing he 
told us to buy him a ticket and that as long as 
we bought him the ticket, they would let him go 
or whatever, but obviously that didn't happen 
either. And after that, we came to Ramallah 
through Jordan, and we're here now with all our 
family, waiting for him to come home.

AMY GOODMAN: We have Sameeh Hammoudeh on the line 
with us again from jail. Have they given you any 
indication if it they will release you?

SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH: No. They won't. I mean, my 
attorney keeps trying to call them, and every 
time they give him just the cold shoulder, and 
he's having even trouble to communicate with the government officials.

AMY GOODMAN: John Sugg, is there any redress? Can 
you compare this to any other cases that you have 
tried? And in your interviews with the 
prosecution, with the government, what are you hearing?

JOHN SUGG: Well, I don't think that there – I 
think that there's reasons that they're holding 
Hammoudeh that have nothing to do with whether 
he's guilty or innocent of anything. I think 
that, you know, the same reasons, the same 
mentality why, you know, we hold scores of 
prisoners at Guantanamo, many of whom we know had no involvement in terrorism.

You know, one thing that's important to also keep 
in context in this case -- Linda Moreno sort of 
addressed it -- but almost all of the activities 
of these men, certainly of Al-Arian, occurred 
before 1996, occurred in the late 1980s, early 
1990s. The Tampa Tribune, which she mentioned, is 
very adept at failing to mention the time context 
of all of that, because most of what they were 
doing was perfectly legal, First Amendment-protected stuff.

Terrorists don't go out there and try to draw 
attention to themselves. They don't work with the 
F.B.I., as Al-Arian did, trying to create a 
better understanding of his cause and of Islam 
and other things. Terrorists don't draw attention 
to themselves like that. I mean, whatever they 
were doing, they were trying to state their point 
of view. You can agree or disagree with their 
point of view, but all along this has been a case 
of our government making a frontal assault on 
civil liberties, and with Hammoudeh, it's one more extension of that.

And that’s – I don't think that there is any 
reason. I think the government is embarrassed. 
The government was terribly embarrassed by the 
verdicts in this case. They couldn't prove a 
thing, and so they're just exacting retribution 
now on these guys to make, you know – for 
retribution, revenge. And I think that that's a 
very poor thing for our government to be engaged in.

AMY GOODMAN: John Sugg, Professor Al-Arian's 
indictment in 2003 was hailed by then-Attorney 
General John Ashcroft as one of the first 
triumphs of the PATRIOT Act. The government's 
case was built on hundreds of documents, 
including thousands of hours of wiretapped 
telephone calls, intercepted emails, faxes, bank 
records, gathered over a decade.

JOHN SUGG: Right. Well, 400,000 wiretaps, and the 
government could find only a few hundred that 
pertained to anything at all. It was so 
ridiculous. With Hammoudeh, for example, the 
government claimed that every time the word 
“family” was mentioned that it referred to the 
Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I mean, these 
prosecutors had watched too many Godfather 
movies, okay? So when Hammoudeh would call up his 
elderly father and mother and ask about how the 
family was doing, the government says that they 
were talking about Islamic Jihad business. I mean, that's how stupid this was.

The PATRIOT Act, almost all of the information -- 
all of the information, I'm told, but give them a 
break -- almost all of the information, the 
government has had for years, there was nothing 
new added by the PATRIOT Act in this case. That 
was a fraud, you know, perpetuated by the 
government to justify the prosecution.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila Al-Arian?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Also, I wanted to say, to put 
this case in context, in 2003 in the first 
indictment, also in the superseding indictment, 
there were 34 counts against my father, and he 
was acquitted or the charges were dismissed 
against all of them, but one, which was extremely 
watered down in the plea agreement. So, you know, 
for the government to hail this case is just 
completely hypocritical and false.

AMY GOODMAN: What has this done to your family? 
And, Weeam, I want to ask you the same in Ramallah.

LAILA AL-ARIAN: I mean, it's definitely 
devastated us. My younger siblings have basically 
grown up during the most important time of their 
lives -- they're 15 and 12 right now -- without a 
father, and, you know, it's just one of the worst 
possible things that can happen to a family is to 
lose their father and to see him being held in such horrible conditions.

AMY GOODMAN: You are all American citizens. Your 
brother went to Duke, was an aide to Congressman 
Bonior at the time. You are now a journalist. How 
has it shaped you and your view and how you will cover things?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: I guess, seeing the media 
coverage in our case and kind of all the false 
things that are printed about my father and about 
the trial, it's just made me sort of cynical 
about kind of – I mean, I'd like to be the kind 
of journalist that makes sure that everything 
that I publish or print is 100% true, but it's 
just, to me, jarring. I was just thinking about 
it this morning on the way here, that to see all 
of the, I guess, misperceptions about the case 
that are printed day in and day out and how 
they're taken as fact by people who have never 
attended the trial, just reprinting falsities 
that my father was a leader in the PIJ or that he 
engaged in fundraising or that he, you know, funded the organization, etc.

AMY GOODMAN: You know Weeam.

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Yes, I do.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you both go to the trial together?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Weeam, how has this affected your family?

WEEAM HAMMOUDEH: I mean, along the same lines. 
It's really devastated us a lot emotionally. And, 
I mean, I have younger siblings, like my youngest 
brother is turning five in two weeks, so I mean, 
we have three kids that are ten and under, and 
you know, they've spent three years of their 
lives without their father, and it's really hard 
explaining to them why, especially with the 
youngest two, because, I mean, five and seven. 
When everything happened, my brother wasn't even 
two years old yet. And, I mean, for the first 
month or so, every time the door would open, he 
would run out the house saying, “Baba! Baba!” 
waiting for my dad to get there, because that's 
what he was used to, and then just after a while 
he stopped saying it, because I guess he got used 
to not seeing him, and the expectation wasn't there anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: Sameeh Hammoudeh, the last word goes 
to you, as you speak to us detained in Bradenton, Florida.

SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH: Well, I will just say what the 
jurors found after five months of the 
government's presentation. I mean, when the 
twelve jurors went into deliberation, they took 
several hours to silently examine the evidence. 
Then, the foreperson asked for a show of hands to 
determine the verdict on Hammoudeh, and without 
hesitation, all twelve they have their hands up 
for acquittal on all counts, and one of the 
jurors said, “Without talking about it, we had 
each made up our mind.” I mean, they even did not 
discuss what the government had said about me, 
because they did not believe anything.

Everything was fabrication. Everything was a mere 
lie, sad lies. This is what they did, and this is 
what they are insisting on doing to me and to 
continue my ordeal, only because I am a stateless 
Palestinian, that nobody is going to care about 
me, nobody is going to talk about my case. I am 
not a Christian. I am not a Jew. I am not a 
citizen of a powerful country that can ask about 
my destiny, about why the American government is abusing my rights.

And I am very upset. I am very frustrated, and I 
think the American government now is taking the 
United States into a very dangerous situation, 
where they are violating everything that belongs 
to human dignity and to human rights. They are 
violating all the traditions of the United 
States. They are violating everything human in 
this life. They are turning this country to an 
ugly country for everyone who's observing what 
they are doing, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, here 
inside the United States and everywhere. I mean, 
in an era where people are opening up to each 
other, nations are coming closer to each other, 
they are thinking about building walls, and they 
are encouraging Israel to establish a wall 
between the Jews and the Palestinians instead of 
encouraging the Palestinians and Israelis to talk 
to each other and to establish enduring peace between them.

AMY GOODMAN: Sameeh Hammoudeh, I want to thank 
you very much for being with us. And, Laila, last 
question: Where will your father be deported to 
after he serves his year and a half?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: We're not actually sure of that 
yet, and we appeal to any country that's willing 
to take a stateless Palestinian refugee to give him a home, give us a home.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila Al-Arian, thank you for 
joining us here in New York, Columbia journalism 
student, daughter of Sami Al-Arian; Weeam 
Hammoudeh, the daughter of Sameeh Hammoudeh -- 
both on the line with us, Weeam waiting for her 
father in Ramallah; Sameeh Hammoudeh speaking to 
us from the Manatee County Jail in Bradenton, Florida.

www.democracynow.org

Sami Al-Arian Co-Defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh 
Remains in Jail Four Months After Being Acquitted of All Charges

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/03/145229

We look the case of one of Sami Al-Arian's 
co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh. Despite being 
acquitted in December of all the terrorism 
charges against him, he remains behind bars. 
Hammoudeh speaks to us from jail in Florida and 
we go to Ramallah to speak with his daughter, 
Weeam, who is waiting for him to be released and 
deported. [includes rush transcript]

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We look the case of one of Sami Al-Arian's 
co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh. In December, he 
was found not guilty of all charges against him 
and the judge in the case ordered his immediate release from jail.

Hammoudeh, who is also Palestinian, expected to 
be immediately deported along with his wife and 
six children. The deportation was part of an 
agreement in exchange for pleading guilty to tax 
and immigration violations in a separate case in 
which he received no jail time.

But officials from Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement took him into custody, saying 
initially that its standard of innocence was 
different from the jury's. A spokeswoman for the 
agency said they believed that "Hammoudeh had 
ties to terrorists," despite his acquittal.

Nearly four months after being acquitted of all 
terrorism charges, he remains behind bars. Sameeh 
Hammoudeh joins us on the line now from Manatee 
County Jail in Bradenton, Florida.

We are also joined by Sameeh Hammoudeh"s 
daughter, Weeam. She joins us on the line from 
Ramallah in the West Bank. The family moved there 
after her mother was deported in February.

    * Sameeh Hammoudeh, speaking from the Manatee 
County Jail in Bradenton, Florida.
    * Weeam Hammoudeh, daughter of Sameeh 
Hammoudeh speaking from Ramallah, West Bank.
    * John Sugg, senior editor for Creative 
Loafing, an Atlanta-based alternative weekly 
newspaper. He has closely followed the Sami Al-Arian for the past 10 years.
    * - Website: <http://www.johnsugg.com>JohnSugg.com

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RUSH TRANSCRIPT