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<h1><b>Ex-Professor Acquitted on Several Charges </b></h1><font size=3>By
MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer<i> 18 minutes ago</i> <br><br>
In a stinging defeat for prosecutors, a former Florida professor accused
of helping lead a terrorist group that has carried out suicide bombings
against Israel was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him
Tuesday, and the jury deadlocked on the rest.<br><br>
The case against Sami Al-Arian, 47, had been seen as one of the biggest
courtroom tests yet of the Patriot Act's expanded search-and-surveillance
powers.<br><br>
After a five-month trial and 13 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted
Al-Arian of eight of the 17 counts against him, including a key charge of
conspiring to maim and murder people overseas. The jurors deadlocked on
the others, including charges he aided terrorists.<br><br>
Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer engineering
professor, wept after the verdicts, and his attorney, Linda Moreno hugged
him. He will return to jail until prosecutors decide whether to retry him
on the deadlocked charges.<br><br>
Two co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were
acquitted of all charges. A third, Hatem Naji Fariz, was found not guilty
on 24 counts, and jurors deadlocked on the remaining eight.<br><br>
"While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the evidence we
presented in court," Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos
said.<br><br>
Al-Arian's wife, Nahla, celebrated outside the courthouse with family
members and supporters.<br><br>
"I'm ecstatic," she said. "My husband is an outspoken
Palestinian activist who loved this country, believed in the system, and
the system did not fail him."<br><br>
Moreno said she hoped prosecutors would take into account the
"overwhelming number of not-guilty verdicts" against the
defendants in deciding whether to try Al-Arian again.<br><br>
"We are so grateful to these jurors," Moreno said. "They
worked hard." She planned to ask the court soon to release Al-Arian
from jail.<br><br>
Federal prosecutors said Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants acted as the
communications arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, spreading the word
and raising money that went toward the suicide attacks that have killed
hundreds.<br><br>
Al-Arian was considered one of the most important terrorist figures to be
brought to trial in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
His indictment in 2003 was hailed by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
as one of the first triumphs of the Patriot Act, which was enacted in the
weeks after Sept. 11.<br><br>
The Patriot Act gave the government greatly expanded powers and broke
down the wall between foreign intelligence investigations and domestic
law enforcement. In the Al-Arian case, officials said, it allowed
separate FBI investigations one of them a yearslong secret foreign
intelligence probe of the professor's activities to be combined and all
the evidence used against him.<br><br>
A male juror, whose name was being kept secret by the court, said he did
not see the case as a First Amendment issue, explaining that the decision
came down to lack of proof. "I didn't see the evidence," he
said.<br><br>
On Monday, the panel told federal Judge James S. Moody that they could
not reach verdicts on all counts. Moody sent them back to continue
deliberations, and they emerged Tuesday to tell the judge they were
hopelessly deadlocked on the remaining counts against Al-Arian and
Fariz.<br><br>
One juror said in a note to the judge that she was being pressured by
other jurors to change her vote and could not continue to deliberate.
"My nerves and my conscience are being whipped into
submission," the juror wrote.<br><br>
Al-Arian, a Palestinian who was born in Kuwait, has lived in the United
States since 1975. He was granted permanent-resident status in 1989 and
denied U.S. citizenship in 1996. He was fired from the university shortly
after he was indicted.<br><br>
The federal jury heard from 80 government witnesses and listened to
often-plodding testimony about faxes and wiretapped phone calls.
<br><br>
The government alleged that the defendants were part of a Tampa terrorist
cell that took the lead in determining the structure and goals of the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the State Department has listed as a
terrorist group. <br><br>
Prosecutors said Al-Arian and other members of the terrorist organization
used the university to give them cover as teachers and students, and held
meetings under the guise of academic conferences. <br><br>
Prosecutor Cherie Krigsman likened the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to the
Mafia and named Al-Arian as one of its "crime bosses," like
TV's Tony Soprano. <br><br>
The defendants said that although they were vocal advocates in the United
States for the Palestinian cause and may have celebrated news of the
terrorist group's attacks, the government had no proof that they planned
or knew about any violence. They said the money they raised and sent to
the Palestinian territories was for legitimate charities. <br><br>
Al-Arian's attorney, William Moffit, said the professor was being
persecuted for espousing unpopular opinions that should be protected
under the First Amendment. <br><br>
"Any discussion of Sami Al-Arian being the most powerful man in the
PIJ is fantasy," Moffitt said in his closing argument. "He
never had control of the money, he never made any decisions."
<br><br>
The case was built on hundreds of pages of transcripts of wiretapped
phone calls and faxes, records of money moving through accounts,
documents seized from the defendants' homes and offices, and their own
words on video. At times, the participants appeared to speak glowingly of
the Palestinian "martyrs" who carried out suicide attacks.
<br><br>
"This shows we have faith in the American justice system," said
Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations,
which had supported Al-Arian. "This has shown that America is not
only the best country in the world, but the jurors proved that we also
have the best justice system." <br><br>
The jury also heard from the father of Alisa Flatow, a New Jersey student
killed in a 1995 bus bombing carried out by the terrorist group in Gaza.
<br><br>
Five others indicted in the case, including Al-Arian's brother-in-law,
have not been arrested. The brother-in-law was deported in 2002, and the
others also are out of the country.<br><br>
<br>
Fla. professor acquitted of funding Islamist group<br>
06 Dec 2005 21:00:24 GMT<br>
Source: Reuters<br><br>
<br>
By Robert Green <br><br>
TAMPA, Fla., Dec 6 (Reuters) - A federal jury on Tuesday found a former
Florida professor not guilty of funding a banned Islamist group in a
verdict likely to be seen as a stiff blow to the U.S. government in its
attempts to prosecute terror suspects. <br><br>
The jury in Tampa, Florida, took 13 days to deliver its verdict against
Sami al-Arian, who along with three co-defendants was accused of raising
money for Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. <br><br>
The panel, delivering verdicts six months to the day after the trial
started, found al-Arian not guilty of conspiracy to murder, providing
material support to a terrorist group and obstruction of justice.
<br><br>
The other men, Sameeh Hammoudeh, Hatem Fariz and Ghassan Ballut, were
also cleared of most of the charges against them. <br><br>
The jury was deadlocked on several other charges and U.S. District Judge
James Moody declared a mistrial on those counts. <br><br>
Prosecutors will have to decide whether to retry the men on the undecided
charges. <br><br>
The four were arrested in February 2003 and accused of providing money
and support to Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group the United States
designated as a terrorist organization in 1997. <br><br>
The U.S. government blames Islamic Jihad for killing more than 100 people
in Israel, including three Americans. <br><br>
When the defendants were arrested, then-U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft said al-Arian was Islamic Jihad's North American leader. The
defendants denied the charges and said any money they sent to the group
was for charitable activities. <br><br>
The prosecutors' case during the five-month trial in Tampa was based
mostly on thousands of hours of wiretapped telephone calls, intercepted
e-mails and faxes and bank records gathered over a decade. <br><br>
Federal prosecutors said al-Arian, a former professor at the University
of South Florida, ran an Islamic Jihad cell in Tampa with the help of the
other three men. <br><br>
There were over 70 witnesses called in the trial, which began June 6.
None of the defendants testified in his own defense and Al-Arian and
Ballut did not call any witnesses. <br><br>
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