April 17, 2006
Creative Loafing, JohnSugg.com
By John Sugg
Sami Al-Arian’s case is near an end. He has agreed to plead guilty to one of the lesser counts in the indictment against him. He admits he participated in the activities of Palestinian Islamic Jihad prior to Jan. 24, 1994, and that he provided some level of assistance thereafter.

For such an allegedly bad guy, the government is willing to accept a very mild end-game. The agreement calls for Al-Arian to receive a punishment at the “low end” of sentencing guidelines of 46-57 months. With time already served, Al-Arian should be out no later than next March. He’ll then be deported.

However, lawyers and his family wonder about another one of the government’s many tricks. If no country will accept Al-Arian, he could stay in jail. The government previously, in the case of Al- Arian’s brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, agreed to deportation and then sought to undermine attempts to find a country that would accept him.

The government, said lawyers knowledgeable of the case, was fearful of another loss or hung jury should Al-Arian prevail at a retrial of nine remaining counts. A jury found the Palestinian academic not guilty of eight counts last December. No more than two of the 12 jurors favored conviction on the counts that resulted in mistrials.

Another embarrassing failure of this high-profile case — touted by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as proof of the value of the PATRIOT Act — could be a career-ender for the Tampa U.S. Attorney, Paul Perez, and his assistants on the case.

However, the government showed its willingness to persecute, if not prosecute — keeping Al-Arian indefinitely in jail until he conceded.

Al-Arian and family are bankrupt. The family owes attorneys Bill Moffitt and Linda Moreno roughly $1 million.

In short, Al-Arian was looking at a trial using public defenders and not his own counsel. Actually, the federal public defenders in the first trial were quite effective, but they represented minor co- defendants, not Al-Arian.

I do know that the contributing factors to Moffitt not putting on a defense during last year’s trial were that, aside from the embarrassing paucity of the government’s case, Moffitt couldn’t front the money required. The defense had few financial and organizational resources, pitted against the government with no fewer than five attorneys and numerous FBI agents and support personnel. Even with that advantage, the government lost badly.

All of those things combined to make Al-Arian believe he wouldn’t have fun in a new trial. The government, he also realized, would put on a much better show. If he couldn’t find the funds to mount a defense (we’re talking another million or so), he’d likely be convicted. And the government, unless completely inept, wouldn’t leave open the possibility of Al-Arian not presenting a defense.

The plea is interesting. Al-Arian admits assisting a terrorist organization. But, of course, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the extreme right-wing congresswoman in Miami, does the same. She supports the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which is on the same list of terrorist groups as is the outfit Al-Arian supported. There is a difference. Al-Arian ended his active participation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad when it was put on our government’s list of terrorist groups. Ros-Lehtinen supports the MEK even thought it is an official, bona fide terrorist group, according to the government.

And, as I’ve reported for seven years (and the St. Pete Times recently and very belatedly discovered), the guy who for years was the lead prosecutor in the Al-Arian case, Bob O’Neill, owns a business that raises money for the Irish Republican Party, a thoroughly terrorist group.

I doubt that either Ros-Lehtinen or O’Neill will face deportation or be psychologically tortured into pleading guilty to any charge, as Al-Arian has been.