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The Ledger - October 27, 2005
Prof. Al Arian presents no defense in terrorism-support trial
By MITCH STACY
TAMPA, Fla. After hearing from government witnesses for nearly five months, an attorney for a fired college professor charged with aiding Palestinian terrorists rested his case Thursday without calling a single witness.
After summoning more than 70 witnesses, federal prosecutors rested their case earlier Thursday morning against Sami Al-Arian and three other defendants accused of raising money and supporting the murderous mission of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad or PIJ.
Al-Arian's attorney, William Moffitt, stunned most in the courtroom when he told U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. that he also would rest. Attorneys for Al-Arian's three co-defendants began presenting their cases, which could take weeks more.
When asked about the decision, Moffitt would say only that Al-Arian has done nothing wrong and the U.S. Constitution protects his right to speak.
"The government has not proven Dr. Al-Arian has done anything but speak," Moffitt said.
Prosecutor Cherie Krigsman declined comment.
Prosecutors built their case around hundreds of pages of transcripts of wiretapped phone calls and faxes they say proves that the defendants raised money to fund the cycle of suicide bombings that killed hundreds.
The conversations and correspondence, intercepted by the FBI from the mid-1990s to about 2003, have included discussions about the direction and financing of the PIJ. Other times, the participants appear to celebrate suicide attacks that killed Israelis and speak glowingly of the Palestinian "martyrs" who carried them out.
Jurors also heard from victims and witnesses of three suicide bombings carried out by the PIJ in Israel and the Palestinian territories, although Al-Arian and the others are not accused of being directly involved in them…..
Al-Arian, 47, and his co-defendants - Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Zayed Ballut and Hatem Naji Fariz - face a 51-count indictment that includes charges of providing material support to terrorists, racketeering and conspiracy. Five other men have been indicted but have not been arrested. They are out of the country.
Prosecutors allege they used the academic think tank, a Palestinian charity and school founded by Al-Arian in Tampa as fundraising fronts for the PIJ. Prosecutors say they acted as the communications arm of the PIJ, spreading the word and raising money as they fueled the cycle of suicide bombings.
The men deny they supported violent acts and say they are being persecuted for championing views that are unpopular with the U.S. government. They claim the money they raised went to benefit Palestinian charitable causes.
Defense attorneys say the prosecution's evidence is circumstantial and thin……
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051027/APN/510270798
St. Petersburg Times – October 23, 2005
Is there enough to convict Al-Arian?
By MEG LAUGHLIN
TAMPA - On a muggy day in early June, the trial of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian began in a courthouse ringed with 4-foot security barricades, federal agents and local police.
The trial had been highly anticipated since Al-Arian's arrest more than two years ago, and his indictment with three others for conspiring to further the terrorist activity of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Israel.
Federal prosecutor Terry Furr, in his opening statement, described "a small group of intellectual elitists . . . dedicated to the annihilation of Israel, through the killing and maiming of its inhabitants." The defendants were part of "the PIJ terror cycle," he said. "A murder occurs. They'll announce they did it . . . (then say) give us money so we can do it some more."
After almost five months, the prosecution is expected to rest this week, raising the question: Does the evidence support what Furr said?
The case is largely circumstantial, built upon bank records, statements made at rallies, wiretapped conversations and intercepted faxes. Notably:
TV Videos in 1990 and 1991 of Al-Arian speaking at U.S. fundraising conferences in favor of "armed struggle" against Israel.
Bank records from 1993 of money Al-Arian sent to the families of four PIJ members who killed three Israeli soldiers in 1992 and money sent to PIJ-related charities.
FBI wiretaps from 1994 of Al-Arian's phone conversations and faxes with PIJ leaders, which show his intimate working relationship with them.
A 1995 letter Al-Arian wrote to a Kuwaiti legislator after a suicide bombing in Israel in which he asked for contributions for the killers' poverty-stricken families so "operations such as these can continue."
Born in Kuwait of Palestinian heritage, Al-Arian was a computer engineering professor well-known for his Palestinian activism locally. Suspicion about his links to terrorists arose in 1994, after he was questioned in a TV documentary called Jihad in America.
That suspicion intensified in late 1995 after a man he hired to run a Tampa think tank left the country and became the new head of the PIJ.
When the U.S. Patriot Act and a court ruling cleared the way for greater sharing of information between intelligence agencies and law enforcement, he was arrested on a 53-count federal conspiracy indictment.
Explaining the indictment, Furr told jurors,"What you'll see repeatedly is fundraising events to try to get money for the family of some guy that's going to blow himself up and murder a bunch of people. . . . It's how they buy loyalty."
Contrary to what Furr said, there has been no evidence to show that Al-Arian or any of the defendants sent money to anyone about to commit a suicide bombing. Nor is there evidence that money raised by the defendants and earmarked for charity eventually went for killing. But there is repeated, undisputed evidence that defendants raised money for what defense attorneys call "the charitable arm of the PIJ."
How jurors view this aid is at the heart of the case. At issue: Does money Al-Arian sent to needy families of killers after the fact, and money sent to the charitable arm of the PIJ, mean he encouraged future terrorism?
Prosecutor Cherie Krigsman told the court that "money is fungible" and could finance terrorism, even though it appears to be for charity. And presiding U.S. District Court Judge James S. Moody told attorneys that defendants "could write on a check "for baby clothes' but it could be for anything."
But an expert in suicide terrorism, who is not part of this case, sees the money connection differently.
"It doesn't work the way people think," said Robert Pape, director of the well-respected Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, which studies what motivates suicide bombers, including those in the occupied territories of Israel.
"It's not that these (PIJ) charities fund the lethal activities. If prosecutors are trying to prove that, it just isn't there," says Pape.
"But there is an indirect link," he says.
A University of Chicago political science professor who wrote the 335-page book Dying to Win, the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Pape says extensive research shows that PIJ suicide operations in Israel "are very cheap - usually costing under $100," and don't require fundraising in the United States.
The killers drive an old car or ride a bike. The cost of explosives are nominal. Often, says Pape, they pay for their own transportation and materials, and aren't dependent on money from elsewhere.
Suicide killings are not motivated by money to the killers' families or the promise that their relatives will be cared for, Pape says, despite a misguided belief in the United States. The killings come out of "inspiration and spontaneity that is motivated by a strong sense of belonging to a community of oppressed and subjugated people" who need your sacrifice, he says……
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/23/Hillsborough/Is_there_enough_to_co.shtml
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