Vol. 71/No. 12      March 26, 2007

Last November, a federal judge charged Al-Arian with civil contempt charges for not testifying. Al-Arian said that a plea bargain with U.S. prosecutors frees him from any obligation to cooperate with the government.

Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa and a supporter of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, has been in prison since February 2003. University officials fired him shortly after he was indicted for “racketeering, conspiracy to maim and murder,” and of providing material support to the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. In December 2005 the government’s case collapsed when a federal jury in Tampa acquitted Al-Arian of the "terrorism" charges and deadlocked on other counts.

Prosecutors conceded that they could not produce evidence linking Al-Arian to “terrorist” acts. He was then returned to prison while prosecutors decided whether to retry him on the deadlocked charges.

Under an agreement with the government, Al-Arian pled guilty to “conspiracy to provide services” to Islamic Jihad. He would be given a prison term of up to 57 months and then would be turned over to immigration authorities for deportation. On May 1, 2006, Al-Arian was given the maximum sentence. He was originally scheduled to be released April 13.

In a January 22 statement before the judge, Al-Arian said, “In the past three weeks, I have been to four prisons. I spent 14 days in the Atlanta penitentiary under 23-hour lockdown, in a roach and rat infested environment… . In Petersburg, [Virginia] the guard asked me to take off my clean T-shirt and boxers and gave me dirty and worn-out ones. When I complained, he told me to ‘shut the f_ up.’ And when I asked why he was treating me like that, he said ‘because you’re a terrorist.’… These are examples of the government’s harassment campaign against me that’s been taking place for years because of my political beliefs.”

For more information on Al-Arian's defense campaign, see www.freesamialarian.com/home.htm  
 
 
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