May-June 2008

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Al-Arian Ordered to Appear before Third Grand Jury

By Wendi Maloney

The government has once again called on former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian to testify before a federal grand jury.

Al-Arian was charged in 2003 with supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, designated by the U.S. Justice Department as a terrorist organization. Following a trial in 2005, a jury acquitted him of eight of the counts against him and deadlocked on the remaining nine counts. In February 2006, Al-Arian entered into a plea bargain with the government in which he pleaded guilty to one charge against him and agreed to be deported after serving his sentence. Although government prosecutors recommended that Al-Arian be subject to the minimum term required by law, which would have been only a few weeks longer than the time he had already served, a federal judge imposed the maximum sentence, which required another year and a half in jail. Al-Arian was scheduled for release in April 2007.

In May 2006, however, ten days after his sentencing, he was subpoenaed and given a grant of immunity to testify before a grand jury in Virginia reportedly investigating Islamic charities in the state. Al-Arian refused to testify, arguing that the terms of his plea agreement made him immune from having to do so. As a result, he was cited for civil contempt, and his sentence under the plea agreement was put on hold. When the grand jury term expired, Al-Arian was called a second time to testify in the same case. He again refused and was again cited for contempt. In December 2007, a federal judge lifted the contempt citation against Al-Arian, and he began serving the time remaining under his plea agreement.
 
Al-Arian had almost finished serving his sentence when he was called to testify yet again in March. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, Al-Arian’s lead defense lawyer, told the Tampa Tribune on March 3 that he cannot discuss whether the current grand jury will investigate the same issues its predecessors examined. He contends that the Justice Department is seeking to mete out a punishment against Al- Arian that it could not secure from a jury. To protest this latest subpoena Al-Arian began a hunger strike, and as of April 18 he had lost more than thirty pounds, Turley told the New York Times.

Al-Arian now faces either deportation or a new indictment, the Times reports. In April, he was transferred to the custody of the immigration and customs enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that would be responsible for his deportation. If the government charges Al-Arian with criminal contempt instead of deporting him, his time in jail could be extended by years.