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Al-Arian Faces Contempt Charges

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The Associated Press

Published: June 26, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. - A former professor who pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group was charged Thursday with refusing to testify before a grand jury in a related investigation.

A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., indicted Sami al-Arian on two counts of criminal contempt. Arraignment is set for 10 a.m. Monday.

Al-Arian has completed his nearly five-year prison term but remains in custody because he has refused to testify before a grand jury investigating Muslim charities and businesses. His attorneys had been negotiating his deportation, but the indictment puts that on hold.

Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer science professor, was taken into federal custody in 2003. Prosecutors alleged that he was a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the United States calls a terrorist organization, but his 2005 trial in Florida ended in acquittal on some charges and a hung jury on others.

The government decided to retry him, and he agreed to a plea bargain on lesser charges. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

Critics say the case reflects overzealous prosecution of Muslim-Americans. Earlier this year, al-Arian went on a 57-day hunger strike to protest his detention.

"After failing to convict Dr. al-Arian before a Florida jury, the government has continued to use any and all means to prolong his confinement," said al-Arian's attorney, Jonathan Turley.

He said the government has used similar tactics to confine others acquitted of terrorism-related charges. For example, former Howard University professor Abdelhaleem Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison for refusing to testify before a grand jury in Chicago after he was acquitted on charges of aiding the Palestinian terrorist network Hamas.

Turley said al-Arian has given two sworn statements to the government and volunteered to take a polygraph test to demonstrate he's told everything he knows about the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va., which funded his Palestinian think tank in Tampa.

"This confirms that the government always intended to indict Dr. al-Arian regardless of his cooperation," Turley said.

Jim Rybicki, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said he could not comment on a grand jury matter.

The indictment alleges that al-Arian knowingly disobeyed a judge's order to testify before the grand jury. Al-Arian has claimed that terms of his plea agreement exempt him from testifying, but two judges have rejected that claim.

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