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<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dr-Sami-Al-Arian-is-freed-by-Abdus-Sattar-Ghaza-080903-336.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dr-Sami-Al-Arian-is-freed-by-Abdus-Sattar-Ghaza-080903-336.html<br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>September 3, 2008<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=4>Dr. Sami Al-Arian is freed on
bail<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>By Abdus Sattar
Ghazali<br><br>
</i>American Muslim civil rights groups have welcomed the release on bail
of Dr. Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian political activist and former
professor of the University of South Florida.<br><br>
Dr. Al-Arain had been in federal custody for more than five years and was
released in Virginia today after Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) agreed with his attorneys that to hold him was a violation of his
constitutional rights. Al-Arian had been held by ICE for 130 days
and the legal limit was 90 days. <br><br>
In July, Federal judge Leonie Brinkema ordered him freed on bail to await
trial for a criminal contempt charge for refusing to testify to a federal
grand jury. Al-Arian had completed a 57-month sentence a year ago for a
single charge (in plea bargain) of providing services to people
associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.<br><br>
But he was never freed from federal custody. Instead, he was held in
prison on a civil contempt charge by federal prosecutors in Virginia and
then by immigration after his sentence ended.<br>
American Muslim Voice (AMV) Founding Executive Director, Samina Faheem
Sundas, while welcoming Dr. Al-Arian’s release expressed hope that
justice would ultimately prevail as the prosecution has tried to misuse
the justice system to keep him behind the bars. “We welcome Dr.
Al-Arian’s release and hope that it is an indication that justice may
ultimately be served in this disturbing case,” said CAIR Executive
Director Nihad Awad. <br><br>
Welcoming the news of his release Dr. Agha Saeed, Chairman of American
Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT) said:"This is
an important step toward restoration of due process and equal justice for
all". The Muslim Public Affairs Council welcoming the
release of Dr. Sami Al-Arian pointed out that since his arrest five years
ago, his case has become an example of what many American Muslims
perceived to be numerous post-9/11 political persecutions of individuals
using tactics that amount to little more than guilt by
association.<br><br>
Dr. Al-Arian will be restricted to home detention while he awaits trial
for contempt of court in December. Immigration authorities released
Al-Arian hours before a federal judge had ordered the agency to explain
his continued detention. <br><br>
Dr. Al-Arian’s release came days after his attorneys filed a petition for
habeas corpus to demand that the Department of Justice and the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release him on bail as ordered
by a federal judge. <br><br>
Dr. Al-Arian's original sentence - which the government had willfully
extended for over a year beyond the original release date - ended on
April 11 of this year, at which point Dr. Al-Arian was transferred to the
jurisdiction of ICE for deportation. Shortly thereafter, the US Attorneys
office indicted Dr. Al-Arian on two counts of criminal contempt for
failing to testify in an unrelated case. Despite the fact that a federal
judge ordered Dr. Al-Arian released on bail on July 10, and again
reaffirmed this decision on August 8, ICE has brazenly ignored the
judge's pronouncement. <br><br>
The motion by Professor Jonathan Turley and attorneys William Olson and
P.J. Meitl stated:<br>
<br>
<b>"Dr. Al-Arian has been held well past the ninety day period
allowed under the statue [which allows ICE to hold immigrants up to
ninety days while completing deportation procedures]. In fact, as of the
date of this filing, Dr. Al-Arian has been held by ICE for 130 days. Dr.
Al-Arian has not been removed and continues to languish in detention. Dr.
Al-Arian's removal to Egypt is not significantly likely to occur in the
reasonably foreseeable future, given the pending criminal charges against
him and the pattern of behavior already demonstrated by ICE individuals.
The Supreme Court held in Zadvydas and Clark v Martinez 543 US 371 (2005)
that ICE's continued detention of someone like Dr. Al-Arian is
unlawful."</b> <br><br>
The motion also stated that Dr. Al-Arian's attorneys have contacted
immigration authorities in writing on seven different occasions,
regarding Dr. Al-Arian's continued detention, receiving no responses
whatsoever. On Friday, Judge Brinkema has given the government until
Tuesday September 2 to submit a response.<br><br>
Dr Al-Arian was arrested in 2003 on bloated charges of funding terrorism.
In December 2005, after 10 years of federal investigation and a six-month
trial, which cost the taxpayers 50 million dollars, a Florida jury
refused to return a single guilty verdict against Dr. Al-Arian. The jury
acquitted him of 8 of the 17 charges brought against him and was hung on
the remaining charges. The trial "featured eighty government
witnesses (including twenty-one from Israel) and 400 intercepted phone
calls (the result of a decade of surveillance and half a million recorded
calls). In April 2006, Dr. Al-Arian, in a plea bargain, pleaded guilty to
a single non-terrorism related count of conspiracy and agreed to be
deported.<br><br>
Despite the U.S. government's representation that Dr. Al-Arian would not
be compelled to testify against others, Dr. Al-Arian was subpoenaed and
jailed for refusing to testify against others. Even after a civil
contempt charge was lifted in 2007, the Justice Department again
subpoenaed Dr. Al-Arian to testify before another grand jury in 2008. He
currently faces contempt of court charges in federal court in Virginia
for failing to testify to a grand jury. <br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
Authors Bio: Author and journalist. Author of Islamic Pakistan: Illusions
& Reality; Islam in the Post-Cold War Era; Islam & Modernism;
Islam & Muslims in the Post-9/11 American. Currently working as free
lance journalist. Executive Editor of American Muslim Perspective:
<a href="http://www.amperspective.com/" eudora="autourl">
www.amperspective.com</a> <br><br>
<br>
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