Associated Press
May 27, 2004
By Vickie Chachere

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TAMPA, Fla. – An Islamic civil rights organization said Thursday that a former professor accused of financing terrorists is being held under inhumane conditions.

The wife of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian compared his treatment to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops.

“Maybe my husband is not tortured physically, but mentally and emotionally,” Nahla Al-Arian said. “I want this nightmare to end.”

Al-Arian has been held for 14 months at Coleman Federal Penitentiary on charges he used an Islamic think tank and a charity he founded to raise money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He is being held in a unit designed to house disruptive prisoners.

Nahla Al-Arian and Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations, said Al-Arian is held 23 hours a day in a small cell.

They said Al-Arian continues to be strip-searched despite a judge’s order that such searches stop and has been denied access to religious services. He is only allowed one 15-minute telephone call per month, they said.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

Awad said that earlier this month, Al-Arian was strip-searched in front of other prisoners after a videotaped court conference. He said the search was unnecessary because Al-Arian was only moved from his cell to the room where the conference took place and was under a guard’s watch.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said she could not comment on the specifics of Al-Arian’s treatment. She said officers are allowed to search an inmate if they believe the person is concealing contraband.

Council on Islamic-American Relations officials said they believe Al-Arian is being treated overly harsh because he is a Muslim and an Arab.

Council officials contrasted Al-Arian’s experience with Robert Jay Goldstein, a Jewish podiatrist from the Tampa Bay area who pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb a local Islamic center to avenge the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Goldstein is being held in a low- security federal facility in Mississippi.

Al-Arian was charged in a 50-count racketeering indictment. Another defendant, Sameeh Hammoudeh, is also being held at Coleman, and two others have been released on bond.