Vol. 72/No. 34      September 1, 2008

“My father’s only crime was that he was active in raising awareness of what happened to the Palestinian people,” Laila al-Arian told the audience. She described how in February 2003, FBI agents burst into their home, pointing guns at her family and arresting her father.

Al-Arian was a tenured professor of computer science at the University of South Florida. He was charged with conspiracy to support terrorism. The U.S. attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, claimed he was a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Al-Arian spent two and a half years in solitary confinement. In December 2005 he was acquitted on 8 of 17 charges and jurors voted 10-2 in favor of acquittal on the remaining nine. But the government announced it would retry al-Arian on the remaining charges.

In April 2006 al-Arian agreed to a government plea agreement stating he had assisted Palestinians in immigration proceedings. As part of the agreement the government said it would recommend the lowest possible sentence and that he would be released to another country. The agreement also stipulated that al-Arian would not be called on to cooperate with the government in other investigations.

But in May 2006, Judge James Moody sentenced al-Arian to the maximum term—57 months.

In breach of the plea agreement, al-Arian has since been called to testify before three grand juries investigating Islamic organizations in Virginia. Al-Arian has consistently refused to testify, and for this he was charged with two counts of criminal contempt.

The Supreme Court is to decide whether the federal subpoena which led to the contempt charges was lawful. This could take several months.

Although Judge Leonie Brinkema granted al-Arian bail, Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to hold him on the pretext that he is in the process of being deported. He has not been allowed to speak with his attorneys.  
 
 
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