The Tampa Tribune
November 8, 2003
By Elaine Silvestrini
TAMPA – Sami Al-Arian may suffer mental problems as a result of the severely restrictive conditions he is being held under in a maximum security federal prison, Al-Arian’s defense attorney told a judge Friday.

Attorney William Moffitt said he plans to have a psychiatrist examine Al-Arian to determine what effect imprisonment in a high security unit at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex is having on the defendant, being held pending his scheduled January 2005 trial on charges he was a leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Also charged in the case are Sameeh Hammoudeh, Hatim Naji Fariz and Ghassan Zayed Ballut.

Asked later whether he had evidence that Al-Arian’s mental state has been affected, Moffitt declined to say. “I’m concerned that a person who lives under isolation 23 hours a day, an hour worth of recreation and have to be strip searched to do it,” he said. “I’m concerned how that’s going to affect his state of mind.”

Moffitt, who complained that Al-Arian was not allowed to attend Friday’s hearing, told U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun III he was worried that the “coercive prison environment” might affect Al-Arian’s decisions in his defense case.

Attorneys also complained that the prison has made their jobs difficult, limiting access to Al-Arian and their ability to bring legal materials in and out of the facility.

Al-Arian’s other attorney, Linda Moreno described visiting the prison and setting off a metal detector because of an undergarment she was wearing. Moreno said she offered to go to her car and remove the undergarment but was informed she had to wear it.

Moreno said when she asked to see the policy on defense attorneys being required to wear particular undergarments, she was asked to leave. Subsequently, the prison, she said, launched an investigation into a “completely ridiculous, unfounded and scurrilous” allegation that she had tried to smuggle scissors into the prison. She was cleared.

McCoun instructed Moffitt to file a motion if he wants a hearing on the prison conditions. Addressing an earlier complaint, McCoun stressed that he has not denied Al-Arian access to a law library. He said he merely declined to allow Al- Arian special privileges, which includes access to the library.