Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace

March 3, 2008

ARLINGTON — During a hearing in Virginia this morning Dr. Sami Al-Arian was informed that he will be called to testify before a third grand jury. Please read the post below (source: Attorney Jonathan Turley’s blog).

The Justice Department Calls Dr. Sami Al-Arian Before Third Grand Jury

Since the beginning of civil contempt proceedings against Dr. Sami Al-Arian, we have been heavily restricted in what we can discuss in public due to the on-going court sealing of proceedings. Today, however, the government presented a court order that granted him, again, immunity to testify and ordered him to appear before another grand jury. The order effectively strips him of his privilege against self-incrimination and lays the groundwork for a new civil or criminal contempt proceeding.

Dr. Al-Arian was held for a year on civil contempt for refusing to cooperate in a grand jury investigation. Under federal rules, the government is not allowed to use civil contempt confinement against a witness who clearly will not cooperate. Yet, despite his repeated refusals and an international campaign supporting his defiance of the Justice Department, prosecutors insisted that Dr. Al-Arian would break under pressure as a way to keep him confined.

On February 20, 2003, Dr. Al-Arian was arrested and imprisoned based on a February 19, 2003 indictment filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Dr. Al-Arian was charged, along with various co-defendants, in a 53 count Superseding Indictment on September 21, 2004. On December 6, 2005, after a six month trial in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Dr. Al-Arian was acquitted on eight counts and the jury deadlocked on the remaining nine counts. After the defeat in Florida, the government offered to allow Dr. Al-Arian to leave the country if he gave them one criminal count in a plea agreement. From the outset, Dr. Al-Arian made clear to the government that he would never enter a plea agreement that required his cooperation in destroying the lives of other people. Given the condition of deportation and the financial ruin caused to his family, Dr. Al-Arian refused to cooperate on principle and this was a key element in crafting the agreement.

As a result of these negotiations, Dr. Al-Arian executed a written agreement on February 28, 2006 that included a guilty plea to Court 4 of the Superseding Indictment, which carried a guidelines range of 46 to 57 months incarceration. It did not require cooperation. While the government recommended that Dr. Al-Arian be sentenced to the low end of the Guidelines (i.e. 46 months), he was sentenced to a 57-month term of imprisonment on May 1, 2006.

Despite the non-cooperation agreement, prosecutors in Virginia set out to call Dr. Al- Arian to a grand jury in full knowledge that he would refuse and be held in contempt. On May 10, 2006, ten days after being sentenced by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia obtained an order immunizing Dr. Al-Arian and compelling his testimony before the grand jury. It then moved to hold him in civil contempt when he refused to testify.

Dr. Al-Arian continues to seek a judicial order upholding the non-cooperation agreement before the Eleventh Circuit, which heard oral argument on Dr. Al-Arian’s appeal on September 11, 2007.

On January 22, 2007, Dr. Al-Arian began a hunger strike that lasted over two-months. He lost 55 pounds and was experiencing kidney problems when he relented to demands from his family to stop the strike. In May 2007, Dr. Al-Arian was told by the medical staff that he was diagnosed with a hernia and that surgery is required to correct this condition.

Dr. Al-Arian has now outlasted two grand juries. After the court granting a motion to lift the last contempt order, he began serving the remainder of his time from the plea agreement. This time was suspended during his civil contempt period – a way of extending his punishment.

At today’s hearing itself were Professor Turley and Dr. Al-Arian’s local counsel, Will Olson and P.J. Meitl, from the law firm of Bryan Cave.

Professor Turley released the following statement:

On behalf of Mr. Olson and Mr. Meitl and the entire legal team, I wanted to express our great disappointment in the decision of the Justice Department to continue this effort to mete out punishment that it could not secure from a jury. Having lost the case in Florida, the Justice Department has openly sought to extend his confinement by daisy-chaining grand juries.. As in other cases, the government has given Dr. Al-Arian the choice of an obvious perjury trap or a contempt sanction. It is a choice that is obnoxious to our legal system and contrary to any standard of decency. The mistreatment of Dr. Al-Arian remains an international symbol of how the Bush Administration has discarded fundamental principles of fairness in a blind pursuit of retribution against this political activist. We stand committed to fighting this great injustice and hopefully reuniting Dr. Al- Arian with his family and friends.

Jonathan Turley
Lead Counsel for Dr. Al-Arian