The Tampa Tribune
Nov. 29, 2003
By Elaine Silvestrini
TAMPA – Sami Al-Arian’s new attorney has dedicated his professional life to holding the U.S. government to the principles it espouses to the rest of the world. William Moffitt recently began representing the former University of South Florida professor accused of being a leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Moffitt is passionate in his defense of Al-Arian, having long spoken out on issues of race and political freedom.

“I’ve always felt that in times of crises, we sometimes pick out people to be made the devils,” said Moffitt, 54, who is a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.

The organization claims more than 10,000 members and describes its mission as ensuring “justice and due process for persons accused of crime or other misconduct.”

As the group’s president, Moffitt testified before Congress about racial disparities in the nation’s drug laws and asked the United Nations to investigate racial bias in the U.S. justice system. He says he knows what it feels like to face hostility because of politics and race.

Moffitt received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1971, where he was the first black elected student body president.

“I remember the death threats I used to get,” he said.

Speaking Out Led To Threats

He attributed the hostility to his “speaking out against both the [Vietnam] war and American apartheid.”

Speaking in October 2000 at Gonzaga University School of Law, Moffitt recalled his struggle as a young man deciding how he was going to pursue his passion for social activism.

“I was torn between the Black Muslims and the Black Panthers and the question of whether I ought to be a participant in the society that I viewed at that time as being racist,” he said in a speech that was reprinted in the Gonzaga Law Review. “From my past came a person who said, `Well, why don’t you go to law school?’ Now, that was the last thing that I wanted to do.”

As a lawyer representing white clients, Moffitt said he was sometimes mistaken for the defendant by court personnel. Once he was attacked by a sheriff’s deputy for approaching a judge after the deputy thought he was about to hurt the judge. Moffitt said he later received an apology.

Denver lawyer Larry Pozner, a friend of Moffitt, said Moffitt believes “the Constitution protects everyone or it protects no one.”

The Al-Arian case “is built for Bill,” because it’s a cause, Pozner said. “In cases that might be unpopular, Bill will be the first to sign up … especially when a community turns on a person.”

History’s Influence

Moffitt’s partner, Henry W. Asbill, described Moffitt as an avid student of history and an ardent reader. “Bill believes in knowing a lot about as many things as he can learn about,” Asbill said.

Moffitt said his parents instilled in him their “healthy regard for the history of this country, of American apartheid.”

Moffitt grew up in New York. He is now based in Washington. His father was a bartender’s union representative in New York. Moffitt said his father told him what it was like watching the Ku Klux Klan march through his hometown in Georgia.

“It’s a fact of life that there is a strain of America that seeks to punish people who are a little bit different,” Moffitt said.

He sees the Al-Arian prosecution as an example of this phenomenon.

And one aspect of the case that particularly rankles Moffitt is Al- Arian’s incarceration in a high-security unit at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County.

“If he were charged with murder, he would not be incarcerated this way,” Moffitt said. The government is using the restrictive imprisonment as a way of “trying to coerce capitulation,” he said.

Similar Case In Virginia

Moffitt said he saw the same thing happen to another of his clients, Agus Budiman, an Indonesian man who was living in Virginia on a visitor’s visa. Budiman was arrested Oct. 30, 2001, and charged with identification fraud and violating the terms of his visa. The case drew national attention right after the Sept. 11 attacks when Budiman was linked to hijacker Mohamed Atta. Budiman knew Atta when they both lived in Hamburg, Germany. Budiman had been listed on an FBI watch list as a U.S. contact for Atta, and he told the FBI he attended the same mosque and university as Atta in the 1990s.

Budiman eventually pleaded guilty to identification fraud, admitting he helped a friend, Mohamed Belfas, to illegally obtain a Virginia driver’s license. He also violated his visitor’s visa by working as a food delivery driver in Washington. Belfas had been listed on the FBI watch list as a contact person for Osama bin Laden.

Budiman was sentenced to seven months in federal prison and deported to Indonesia. The government never proved he had any connection to the Sept. 11 attacks.

“His case turned out to be a [driver’s] license violation,” Moffitt said, “and yet he was held 23 hours a day in isolation, and you ask yourself the question, why does this seem to happen only to people who are Muslim who happen to be of foreign extraction? … The only similarity between Mr. Budiman and Sami Al-Arian is that they are Islamic people and they are immigrants.

“It’s not only happening to my client; it’s happening to Islamic people who are being held under these current laws all over the country. … For the government to suggest its anything other than race and ethnicity is silly.”