Letter to the Editor

The Tampa Tribune

The front page article “Affidavit Ties in Al-Arian” implies quite strongly that Sami Al-Arian was part of an elaborate international network designed to conceal funding for terrorist organizations, fronting as charities. This is based on an “affidavit” singed by a U.S. Customs Agent David Kane. This was a very long article, and not easy to read. Undaunted, we undertook to read the entire article, only to find out far into the article that they have no evidence that the money went to terrorist organizations, but “government agents still think the money went to terrorism because no other explanation makes sense”.

Apparently it did not occur to them that the money actually did go to charities. According to a recent report by Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, due to the occupation of Palestine “About 60-percent of Palestinians are now living in acute poverty … and are now completely dependent on food aid; less than one in two households has access to one meal a day.” Given these facts, it is not hard for us to imagine that this money may have gone to bona fide charities.

It is going to be extremely difficult for Sami Al-Arian to receive a fair trial for a number of reasons. First, he is being held in very inhumane conditions totally inappropriate for a pretrial detainee. Second, although by law, he should have easy access to lawyers, in practice his access to lawyers is extremely limited. And third, in a recent ruling, he was given the right to view the evidence against him, but his ability to do so is very limited. Furthermore, while he is allowed to see the evidence, neither he nor any potential witness is allowed to talk about the evidence. The only explanation we can think of for this is that there is no evidence against him, and the government does not want us to know that.

All of these factors are going to make a fair trial very difficult, but perhaps the most important factor is the sensationalist, misleading and biased media coverage, predominantly by the Tampa Tribune.

Melva Underbakke
Temple Terrace, FL