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Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace<br>
April 3, 2008<br><br>
I. New Youtube Video Highlights Al-Arian Case<br><br>
We are proud to announce the newly-made gripping video which <br>
discusses the saga of Dr. Al-Arian on YouTube : <br><br>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPdpxxBR2jk" eudora="autourl">
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPdpxxBR2jk<br><br>
</a>Please mark it as your favorite and share it with all your <br>
colleagues.<br><br>
Even though he was scheduled to be released next week, Dr. Sami Al-<br>
Arian, who is on the 32nd day of a hunger strike in which he has <br>
lost more than 30 pounds, could have his sentence extended any day <br>
now. Keep showing your support for Dr. Al-Arian at this critical <br>
time (for details on how to help, please visit <br>
<a href="http://www.freesamialarian.com/help.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.freesamialarian.com/help.html</a>).<br><br>
To all those who have showed their support at this most critical <br>
time, you have our heartfelt thanks.<br><br>
II. The TELEVISION PREMIERE of the award-winning documentary "USA
<br>
vs. Al-Arian" will be on Monday, April 7. Link TV will broadcast the
<br>
52-minute TV-version of "USA vs Al-Arian" at various times next
week, <br>
including on the day Dr. Al-Arian is scheduled to be released: <br>
Monday, April 7 at 9:00 p.m. It will repeat Saturday, April 12 at <br>
8:00 p.m. ET and Sunday, April 13 at 11:00 p.m. <br><br>
The documentary will be viewable in its entirety online starting <br>
Monday, April 7 at
<a href="http://www.linktv.org/USAvsAlArian" eudora="autourl">
www.LinkTV.org/USAvsAlArian</a> <br>
For more information and to see a clip from the film, CLICK HERE:<br>
<a href="http://www.linktv.org/programs/usavs" eudora="autourl">
http://www.linktv.org/programs/usavs<br><br>
</a>III. Al-Arian Gets Visitors During Hunger Strike, Tampa Tribune<br>
March 31, 2008<br><br>
By Keith Morelli<br><br>
TAMPA - Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida <br>
professor who remained in a Virginia prison on contempt of court <br>
charges despite his acquittal on serious terrorist charges, has lost
<br>
32 pounds in a month-long hunger strike, according to an Islamic <br>
group's executive director who visited Al-Arian on Monday.<br><br>
Al-Arian is on his second hunger strike to protest his detention. <br>
His family last year moved to Egypt and he is expected to be <br>
deported as soon as he is released from prison. But his refusal to <br>
testify before a federal grand jury is delaying his release.<br><br>
"I was really shocked to see how skinny he is and how much weight he
<br>
lost," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on <br>
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "His hunger strike began on March
<br>
3, and now he looks like a totally different person from the person <br>
I knew five years ago."<br><br>
Still, Awad said, Al-Arian's spirits are high. "Amazingly, he is
<br>
composed and he made sense. He was very sharp, very alert.<br><br>
"He believes in his just cause and we were there to support
him," <br>
Awad said.<br><br>
Al-Arian is on his second hunger strike. On March 3, he first <br>
refused food and water. He had been taken to a medical facility in <br>
North Carolina for treatment but was returned to the Northern Neck <br>
Regional Jail in Warsaw, Va. He is now taking only liquids and has <br>
lost 32 pounds.<br><br>
"This defies logic," Awad said Monday night. "It violates
the spirit <br>
of justice that this country is so proud of. We just hope that <br>
people of conscience and responsible people in the government will <br>
look at this case because it is publicized worldwide."<br><br>
Visiting Al-Arian were representatives of the American Muslim <br>
Alliance (AMA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), CAIR, and <br>
American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT).<br><br>
After the visit, the contingent called on the House Judiciary <br>
Committee to intervene in the case.<br><br>
The former professor was tried in federal court two years ago, and <br>
acquitted of many of the more serious charges. The jury deadlocked <br>
on nine charges and Al-Arian ended up pleading guilty to lesser <br>
counts.<br><br>
"The last thing you want to see," Awad said, "is a
political <br>
prisoner dying on hunger strike."<br><br>
Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or <br>
kmorelli@tampatrib.com.<br><br>
IV. Jailed Professor on Hunger Strike, IPSnews.net<br><br>
By Ali Gharib<br><br>
WASHINGTON, Mar 27 (IPS) - Webster's New Dictionary <br>
defines "justice" with words that represent lofty <br>
ideals; "integrity", "impartiality", and "the
awarding of what is <br>
due". But in the case of Palestinian activist and former University
<br>
of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, critics say, the U.S. <br>
Department of Justice under President George W. Bush has failed <br>
miserably to meet any of those standards.<br><br>
Early this month, just after the five-year anniversary of his <br>
detention, Al-Arian began a hunger strike to protest the repeated <br>
attempts of a U.S. attorney in Virginia to roll back his plea <br>
agreement and call him before a grand jury in a case unrelated to <br>
his own. <br><br>
Since then, Al-Arian has not eaten or taken medicine for his medical
<br>
conditions. He has lost 30 pounds -- growing gaunt in appearance and
<br>
worrying his family and attorneys, though they did manage to <br>
convince him to take water last week after he appeared to be in the <br>
advanced stages of dehydration. <br><br>
On Wednesday, Al-Arian was transferred to a hospital within the <br>
Bureau of Prisons system, where his lead attorney said there was <br>
a "draconian protocol for hunger strikes". <br><br>
Though his lawyers contend that he is under no obligation to <br>
testify, Al-Arian's refusal to talk might cause prosecutors to <br>
charge him with criminal contempt of court and cost him the ability <br>
to leave prison on Apr. 11 having completed his 57- month sentence
--<br>
realising what critics of the case have called a de facto policy of
<br>
indefinite detention. <br><br>
After Al-Arian had spent two and a half years in custody, the <br>
administration was embarrassed when it couldn't secure a single <br>
conviction in one of its highest-profile terrorism cases against the
<br>
man who then attorney general John Ashcroft accused of being the <br>
head of a Palestinian terrorist organization. <br><br>
Facing retrial on the deadlocked charges, Al-Arian decided to spare <br>
his family the agony of another long trial ordeal by pleading to a <br>
lesser charge of aiding associates of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and <br>
directly aiding the group before its designation as a terrorist <br>
organization by the U.S. in 1997. <br><br>
But Al-Arian set conditions for his agreement. Because of the <br>
strains that his imprisonment and trial had put on his own family, <br>
he refused to work with the government on other cases. <br><br>
"He took the position that he did not want to cooperate with any
<br>
effort to destroy other individuals the way that his own family was <br>
destroyed by the government," Al-Arian's lead counsel, George <br>
Washington University law professor Jonathon Turley, told IPS. <br><br>
Al-Arian, who has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years but is not a <br>
citizen, also demanded that the government expedite his deportation <br>
after his release to avert the potential for long immigration <br>
proceedings. <br><br>
The U.S. attorney's office for the Middle District of Florida where <br>
the case was prosecuted obliged, but attached conditions of their <br>
own -- Al-Arian would agree to serve a longer sentence for his <br>
crimes. <br><br>
"There was negotiations back and forth that the plea agreement would
<br>
end all business with the federal government and that he would be <br>
deported," said Linda Moreno, Al-Arian's trial lawyer who <br>
participated in the negotiations. <br><br>
Then came the legal wrangling that has clouded what Al-Arian thought
<br>
would be a clear path to the end of his persecution. <br><br>
Plea agreements in Florida and many other states contain boilerplate
<br>
language that compels defendants to aid the government in other <br>
investigations that can be negotiated away. Rarely is it replaced <br>
with explicit language of a non-cooperation clause. <br><br>
Jack Fernandez, another member of Al-Arian's team, told IPS that has
<br>
never seen a plea agreement in Middle District of Florida where he <br>
practices which states that the defendant cannot be forced to <br>
cooperate with the government. <br><br>
The understanding between the U.S. attorney's office in Florida and <br>
Al-Arian's team was that by removing the language, non-cooperation <br>
was implied. <br><br>
"Many courts have recognized that there are cases in a plea <br>
agreement -- like any contract -- where the intent of the parties is
<br>
not entirely reflected in the language. Those courts have said that <br>
you can present evidence showing the true intent or understanding of
<br>
the parties," Turley said. <br><br>
After the plea was agreed upon, Al-Arian's lawyers asked for an <br>
evidentiary hearing to clarify its intent. A Florida judge rebuffed <br>
the request. <br><br>
Al-Arian challenged the refusal for a hearing in the 11th circuit <br>
court of appeals on the grounds that it "violates the standard not
<br>
just of Florida but of other states", as Turley put it -- noting
<br>
that Al-Arian was only asking for the due process right of <br>
presenting evidence on his own behalf. But the ruling was upheld, <br>
forcing the appeal to the full 11th circuit. If that appeal fails, <br>
the case could go to the Supreme Court. <br><br>
"It is very rare to see a case where the attorneys are prepared to
<br>
make statements under oath and supply evidence that expressed <br>
promises were made, but the court will not allow it to be put in the
<br>
record through an evidentiary hearing," said Turley. <br><br>
"What the former lawyers are arguing here is that not only was Dr.
<br>
Al-Arian misled, but they were misled. That would be a very <br>
important issue for the court to address," he said. <br><br>
The Middle District of Florida U.S. attorney's office refused to <br>
comment for this story. <br><br>
Not long after the agreement, Gordon Kromberg, the assistant U.S. <br>
attorney in Virginia, called Al-Arian to testify before the grand <br>
jury to help build a case against two Islamic charities in Northern <br>
Virginia he suspected of ties to terrorism. <br><br>
The Justice Department now cites the absence of expressed non-<br>
cooperation language to justify the subpoena. <br><br>
"The plea agreement is clear, unambiguous and does not grant
Al-<br>
Arian immunity from future grand jury subpoena," said Justice <br>
Department spokesman Dean Boyd as reported by the Washington <br>
Post. "Therefore, we hold that the government did not break the plea
<br>
agreement by issuing a subpoena commanding Al-Arian to testify <br>
before a grand jury." <br><br>
But both Fernandez and Turley pointed out that the government, to <br>
their knowledge, has never denied the intent of the plea agreement.
<br><br>
"What is interesting is that the Justice Department has not argued
<br>
that there was no understanding or discussion of non-cooperation. <br>
They have based their entire argument on the technical point that <br>
there is no expressed language in the agreement," said Turley.
<br><br>
That reversal from the intent of the agreement made by the Florida <br>
prosecutors is highly unusual, leading some critics of Al-Arian's <br>
treatment at hands of the government to cry of foul play in an <br>
attempt to artificially prolong his detention. <br><br>
Asked by IPS if she had ever seen this absence of coordination <br>
between the two U.S. attorneys' offices that would lead to one <br>
essentially ignoring the agreement made by another, Moreno said, "I
<br>
personally know of no other case like this, in this regard."
<br><br>
(END/2008) <br><br>
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