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Court Denies Al-Arian's Appeal

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The Associated Press

Published: January 26, 2008

ATLANTA - The former University of South Florida professor who pleaded guilty to aiding a Palestinian terrorist group was not immune from a subpoena forcing him to testify in an unrelated investigation of Muslim charities, an appeals court ruled Friday.

The imprisoned Sami Al-Arian, 50, had argued that the terms of his plea agreement exempted him from testifying before a grand jury in an investigation of Islamic charities in Virginia. A federal judge disagreed and found Al-Arian guilty of contempt when he refused to testify.

But the contempt charge was lifted in December, but the appeal was maintained.

On Friday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Al-Arian's appeal, ruling that federal prosecutors did not violate the plea agreement by trying to force him to testify in the Virginia case.

Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor at USF in Tampa, was acquitted on eight counts of aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After a six-month trial, jurors deadlocked on nine other counts.

He pleaded guilty in 2006 to one count of providing services to members of the terrorist group, rather than face a retrial. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison and will be deported after serving the sentence. A judge lifted the contempt charge in December, and it is expected that he may be released in April.

C. Peter Erlinder, the attorney who represented Al-Arian in the contempt case, said a clause requiring him to testify in other cases was specifically removed when the plea agreement was written because Al-Arian made it clear to federal prosecutors that he would not do it.

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