Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008, pages 12-13

Special Report

By Delinda C. Hanley

Link: Click here

After being released from a federal detention center in Fairfax, VA on Sept. 2, Sami Al-Arian (c) sits with his family (l-r): daughter Leena, wife Nahla, daugher Laila, and sons Abdullah and Ali. Lama, the youngest daughter, is attending school in Cairo (Staff photo Matt Horton).

AFTER SPENDING five and a half years in 10 different prisons across the United States, former University of South Florida professor and civil rights activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian was finally released on Sept. 2 and reunited with his family. Dr. Al-Arian had remained behind bars even after a Tampa, Florida jury, following a six-month trial, failed to convict him of a single terrorism charge brought against him in 2005.

After much deliberation, Al-Arian decided to accept a plea bargain, fully expecting to be released immediately and deported to Egypt. But his Florida judge rejected the plea bargain and sentenced him to more time in prison. Then Gordon Kromberg, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, demanded that Al-Arian testify in an unrelated federal grand jury investigation of Muslim organizations and charities in the area. When Al-Arian refused—having insisted that his plea bargain not require him to testify in other cases—prosecutors filed first civil and then criminal contempt charges, consigning him to limbo once again as he awaited yet another trial on charges that had no sentencing guidelines. Despite the fact that Al-Arian volunteered four times to take a polygraph test and provided written answers to every question the government asked, Kromberg refused to drop charges.

On July 10, Washington Report staff members were delighted to hear Federal Judge Leonie M. Brinkema order that Al-Arian be released on bail to serve home detention until his trial. Al-Arian, who had entered the courtroom looking wan and ill, left with a jubilant wave to his family and supporters. Instead, however, officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took him into their custody. Although the judge did not have the authority to prevent this from happening, she knew that the time Al-Arian spent in ICE custody would count toward the 90 days after which ICE would be required to either deport or release him.

Five days before his criminal contempt trial was scheduled to begin on Aug. 13, we attended a pre-trial hearing which everyone expected to be cut-and-dried. Lead defense attorney Jonathan Turley had requested a delay of Dr. Al-Arian’s trial until after the Supreme Court addressed their appeal on the legality of the federal subpoena which led to the criminal contempt charges. Judge Brinkema agreed to postpone the trial until the Supreme Court rules, which could take months.

Turley also raised objections to the legality of the government’s contempt charges. It turns out the immunity order issued by federal prosecutor Kromberg was not written in the standard “boilerplate” language of the congressional legislation authorizing it. Instead Kromberg had taken the unprecedented step of changing the language to state that, in addition to perjury, Dr. Al-Arian could be held liable for obstruction of justice and other future, unspecified violations. Turley had learned only the night before that Kromberg had concealed the fact that a similar unorthodox modification he had made earlier had been stricken down by a federal judge in the same court—whose chambers were just down the hall from Judge Brinkema’s courtroom—for the very trial at which Dr. Al-Arian has been summoned to testify!

Judge Brinkema expressed “significant concerns about [the] conduct” of the prosecution and she said she’d look into the “validity of the [prosecutor’s] immunity order.”

Next the judge ordered that Dr. Al-Arian’s release on bail be transferred to the custodianship of his eldest daughter, Laila, instead of his son. Kromberg shocked the courtroom with a new objection. Implying that as an Arab-American woman, Laila would be too submissive to oppose her father should he decide to violate the terms of his bail, Kromberg said: “In this particular [Arab/Islamic] culture, she would not be able to stop him from leaving…”

Even before Turley could express his dismay at this sexist and racist comment, the judge struck down Kromberg’s objection, saying bluntly that it was “insulting” not only to Dr. Al-Arian and his daughter, but to the Court as well.

Seeing his shaky case against Al-Arian possibly crumbling, Kromberg next tried to distract the court and portray himself as a victim of anti-Semitism. He emotionally claimed that he was afraid for the safety of his family because at a screening the previous week of the documentary “USA vs Al-Arian” former Senator and presidential candidate Mike Gravel had called for the audience to stalk him. (Gravel actually suggested viewers picket Kromberg.) The prosecutor then claimed that Turley’s Web log incited anti-Semitic sentiments.

Ordering both sides to “cool down,” the judge warned that she could replace attorneys if she felt that they were becoming too “personally invested” in the case. (Turley has removed all posts on the Al-Arian case in order to avoid any more of these confrontations with Kromberg.)

Finally, at the end of August, Turley filed a petition for habeas corpus with the court, challenging ICE to deport the professor or release him. After holding Dr. Al-Arian for 130 days—well past the 90 days limit—ICE released him into Laila’s custody on the second day of the holy month of Ramadan to live with his family.

Shortly after his release, we visited Sami at Laila’s residence in Virginia, where he was eagerly awaiting his wife Nahla’s return from Egypt. Not expecting Sami’s release—as he himself had not—she had just returned to Egypt to settle their youngest child, Lama, in school in Cairo, where they hope to settle when all this is behind them.

The Al-Arian family served us apple pie and ice cream, as Sami described packing up for what he thought was a move to yet another prison—and then discovering he could go home with his kids. Still amazed that he was finally surrounded by his family, he talked about his faith in God, which he said helped him survive in prison.

Sami is proud of his children who had to grow up fast, and without their father, when their lives were turned upside down by his arrest in early 2003. Ali, who spent the summer interning at the Washington Report, is now heading off to college. Every member of the Al-Arian family has worked hard to obtain justice for Dr. Al-Arian in a country that ran amok after the attacks on 9/11.

While Dr. Al-Arian may not speak directly to the press until after his trial, he has issued a statement praising the outstanding work of his attorneys, saying, “I am deeply grateful for their efforts in reuniting me with my family after so many years.” He also thanked his supporters, adding, “My thanks go to those in all corners of the globe who have campaigned for my case and for other prisoners of conscience. It takes courage and principle to stand up for justice at a time when fear often trumps rationality and fairness.”

While Islamophobia is still rampant in the country Dr. Al-Arian loves, a 12-person jury in Florida and a federal judge in Virginia have proved that, despite some serious bumps, flaws and delays, eventually the American legal system still works.

Visit <www.freesamialarian.com> for more information, or send a message of encouragement that can be forwarded to Dr. Al-Arian by e-mailing <tampabayjustice@yahoo.com>.