Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace Save

Tampa Florida, May 16, 2007

The film USA vs Al-Arian was shown at the Tampa Theatre in Tampa, Florida on May 16,
2007. A panel discussion was held following the showing of the documentary. What follows
is a transcript of the panel discussion (transcribed by Ted Miciri.)

Ahmed Bedier, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), began the discussion with an introduction of the panelists:
Linda Moreno, defense attorney for Sami Al-Arian;
Abdullah Al-Arian, eldest son of Dr. Al-Arian;
Rev. Warren Clark, Friends of Human Rights & Pastor of the First United Church of Tampa;
Kay Long Masero, former Fox News channel producer (it’s brave of her to be here with us today-she laughs);
Line Halvorsen, director,
and last, but not least, Ron the Juror

Ahmed – “Is Ron here? Maybe he’s getting one of those T-shirts. Someone said he’s looking
for evidence. I’m gonna turn it over to Rob Lorei of WMNF. Rob will be the moderator who will ask questions of panelists for about half an hour.”

Rob – “Good evening, great to see you and it’s been an honor to be here. Line – bent over
backwards being fair in that film, I noticed you thanked Steve Emerson twice in the credits.
(Laughter). Since Linda’s here, Linda, I want to go deeper into what Dr. Al-Arian actually
pled guilty to. And, specifically, I’m interested in what he pled about the St. Petersburg
Times.”

Linda – “It was clear after a few months of negotiations, and, as I said in the film, Dr. Al-
Arian quite frankly was only going to plead guilty to something he was proud of doing. He
was proud of helping his brother-in-law defend himself against secret evidence. That was
something he pled guilty to. And the government started getting desperate, because they
wanted this case over. They said: ‘Well, we want him in the statement of facts also, to plead
guilty, and to say that he lied to a reporter from the St. Pete Times,’ and I said, ‘Well, if that’s
a crime, then we need to start building a lot of prisons, because a lot of politicians are on
their way.’” (applause)

Rob – “In your knowledge, was there ever a case where someone was sentenced based on
lying to a newspaper?”

Linda – “No, this was a case of firsts, and that was certainly one of them. It was something
that Dr. Al-Arian did, and as we told the jury, because the prosecution ran the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) wire-tap, of Dr. Al-Arian being interviewed by the reporter who asked him about someone’s last name. Dr. Al-Arian, said, ‘No, I don’t know that last name.’ And that was the big lie. A lot of lawyers around the country have looked at this plea agreement, and the colloquy, the statement of facts, and said, like Ron the juror, ‘Where’s the crime here?’”

Rob – “I want to get back to the issue of appeal, but I want to do that later on.” Oh, here’s

Ron the Juror. Ron, if you don’t mind, I’m going to put you on the spot and ask you: Why
did the jury come to the decision you did?”
Ron – “Well, the first reason was Ali’s hair. We liked Ali’s hair. (laughter. This is in reference
to a scene from the movie in which Ali is getting a hair cut against his will.) We decided that there was no evidence. It wasn’t that it was weak or poorly constructed. It just wasn’t there.
Political beliefs, personal beliefs, social beliefs, but I saw no evidence of anybody doing
anything that they were accused of.”

Rob – “So talk about what went on in the jury room. Was it tense? Were there many
arguments?”

Ron – “Yeah.”

Rob – “So talk about that, what went on in the jury room?”

Ron – “In the beginning, we really all were very friendly, and throughout the six months we
knew everyone’s political beliefs and so we kinda knew where everyone was going to stand,
but we were polite, friendly and we really got along very well. But when it actually came time
to take sides and to decide, it got a little tense. On some of the counts we were in full
agreement, but on some, it took a lot of persuasion.”

Rob – “Were there jurors who had their minds made up at the start or did they eventually
change their minds? I wonder about some of the characters and the personalities in the jury
room.”

Ron – “At first, there were more guiltys like seven, eight or nine guiltys on the first counts
we went over, generally speaking two or three not guiltys, and the remainder were people
who weren’t sure and wanted to discuss it before they came up with their own decisions. But
as we discussed it, they started to realize that what they thought they heard, or what they
felt, really wasn’t there. And, slowly but surely they just started coming over. Also, as we
read the jury instructions, a lot of them didn’t understand what the standard was, what they
were looking for, and the standards the state had set and what the state had to show us. So,
for the first couple of days, it took us a while to read everything, there was so much to go
through. And, I’m kind of glad it was that way in the beginning. Because people sort of
decided to take a side and said: ‘I’m gonna prove my side.’ So they went through all those
books of conversations we had, trying to find the evidence, trying to prove it to themselves.
As they failed to find it, they started to realize that it really wasn’t there. That the state
hadn’t met its own standards.”

Rob – “And was there an argument that seemed to sway those jurors who initially wanted to
vote guilty? Was there something said? Was there a leader in the group who said ‘Wait a
minute’ and made an argument? And what was the argument that was made?”

Ron – “Not really. There was one particular juror who was the first one to move over, and
when he did, then they all started to question their own thoughts. And basically it was after
he read the jury instructions. Because we did have a lot of problem with that in the
beginning, and finally, one of the jurors said: ‘You all need to read the instructions.’ Because
a lot of them hadn’t, they just dove right into the guiltys and not guiltys. They didn’t want to
bother with everything. So much stuff for us to read. They just didn’t want to deal with it.
And it took us a couple of days before everyone really read the instructions. And once they
had read the instructions and knew what the standard was, one of them finally flipped
through all the pages of one of the books and said, ‘This is all a waste of trees! It’s all
conversation, it doesn’t mean anything. And if you read what the standard is, and you read
what our instructions are, there’s no way we can find him guilty on these things.’ He was, I
think the first out of the original three that came over. And once he did, everyone kind of
looked at it and said ‘You know, I kinda agree. There’s nothing here.’

Rob – “At the sentencing hearing the judge said that Dr. Al-Arian was a master manipulator,
and pretty much threw the book at him. Ah, as a juror who sat through those five or six
months, what did you think of the judge’s decision?”

Ron – “I really don’t know what to say about the judge’s decision. I don’t know what he
knows. We were very limited in what we were allowed to hear. I’m sure he knows more than
we know. He’s heard more than we’ve heard. He decided what we needed to see and hear.
Personally, I don’t agree with what he said. I really don’t think he had a right to say it,
because if he’s using information he has that we don’t have, there was a reason why we
didn’t have it, and if we didn’t have it to make our decisions, I don’t think he should use it to
make his decision. I don’t understand how he could use that. (applause)

Rob – “Linda, just back to you. What does the law say about the judge making the decision
in the method that he made it?”

Linda – “Well, the judge has the right in sentencing to express his beliefs in the integrity of
the evidence and why he is sentencing the person before him in the fashion that he is. What
we say is that this judge had no right to sentence Dr. Al-Arian on conduct that was never
attributed to him. But, just one point on what Ron said: ‘Maybe the judge knew something.’
I want to remind everyone that in this case, these prosecutors shot every bullet they had.
The won every motion they filed. Every witness they wanted to put on the stand, testified.
Every document they wanted in, practically every document, came in. We, on the other
hand, on the defense, lost every motion we filed. In 28 years of practicing law, I’ve never had
that personal experience. And so, the jury heard the greatest case that the government could
put on. And, it was no case at all.” (applause)

Rob – “Kay, let me ask you, and I’ve not met you before, but tell us what you did during the
trial, you were a producer for Fox, for Channel 13.”

Kay – “No, not Channel 13, Fox News Channel in New York.”

Rob – “Oh, I’m sorry, for Fox News Channel in New York. What did you do during the trial and what was your take on the film you just saw?”

Kay – “What I did during the trial, and what they hired me for, was to be their eyes and ears
in the courtroom. Because as you all know, no cameras are allowed in the court room. The
outcome of this trial, I think, would have been much different had there been cameras in the
court room, by the way. And I think Federal trials should have cameras in the court room.
Just my opinion. – (applause) – I think if people could see what was going on in that court
room, the outcome would have been much different. What they hired me for was to be their
eyes and ears and what I did every day, I’m a producer I was hired to sit back there, take
notes every day, and to report back to them in New York and Miami, what had happened
every day.

Rob – “Were there people from other channels?”

Kay – “No.”

Rob – “You were the only national news channel paying day-to-day attention to the trial.
What did you think of the film?”

Kay – “I thought the film was outstanding. (applause) I thought she did a great job with it,
and it gave me a much better perspective about what was going on behind the scenes. I kinda wondered how Nahla was getting along and what was going on with the family.
Because, I mean, lets face it, this thing was a long drawn out, and it still is. I mean, it’s still
going on, I mean, how do you guys pay for things? We wondered about that during the trial.
We wondered about a lot of things, I’m glad Ron the Juror is here, because we were
wondering what was going on in the jury room. And re what you said about inside
information, let me tell you how many bench conferences they had in this trial. I mean, OH
MY GOD, and Linda can tell you, sometimes we would just sit there for like an hour while
they were up there yakking and yakking. We didn’t have any idea, we didn’t have any idea
what they were talking about. Maybe that was some of the stuff that Moody was talking
about in the end, because he put words in Dr. Al-Arian’s mouth that Dr. Al-Arian didn’t even say. You know, about this Great Satan business. So, you know, I don’t know, I don’t get it, but that’s what I was hired to do.”

Rob – “And Kay, you said a moment ago that the outcome would have been different had
there been cameras in the courtroom. How would it have been different?”

Kay – “I think so, because I think that it would have been apparent much earlier… It became apparent to me pretty early on that the government didn’t have much of a case. And I think had that been pounded home to the viewers on the evening NEWS every night, the
shenanigans that were going on in that courtroom, I think the outcome would have been very different. I think the pressure would have been on them a bit more than what it was.
When you’re in Hillsborough County court, or Pinellas County court, or any other court,
cameras are allowed, and you can tell what’s going on, easily, but in this one, it was hard. It
was a hard case, it was a complicated case. Oh My God, it was complicated, and I just think
there would have been more pressure to bear on them had there been cameras in the
courtroom.”

Rob – “Let me bring it over to Warren Clark. Warren, you are the pastor at the United
Church in north Tampa, and you’re seen in some parts of this film We see you on the film.
What was your role during this case?”

Warren – “I had known Sami Al-Arian before through the Hillsborough Organization for
Progress and Equality. It’s a group of churches and his mosque, and several unions that
work for social and economic justice in our area, and so, I had met him in clergy meetings.
And, so, when he was arrested, and when all those counts were brought out, in my mind it
was ‘This doesn’t match the person that I know.’ Uhm, I held back, because I thought
perhaps there is a whole lot I don’t know about, and I guess I held back for about a year, just
not knowing. But, I had some good people in my church that were urging me on, Rob, and I
want to say that Mel Underbakke probably was the person (spontaneous applause from the
audience), who was there at Nahla’s side, over and over and over again. And Mel was with
me, she was like, ‘Warren, come on. We need to move on this. We need to do something with this.’ The thing I thought I could do on this, because I’m not a lawyer or anything like that, but as a pastor, there is a thing in our tradition where Jesus says ‘I was in prison and you visited me.’ And when he came to the Orient Road Jail, I thought, I can at least do that, I can visit with him. And it was such an honor to do that with you and with other members of the family, about every week for the 15 months he was here at the Orient Road jail. In that, the conversations about, ‘What do I plead to?’ – ‘I will not plead to anything that I didn’t do.’

The pressure, and it was clear from this film, I had known there was pressure, but I didn’t
know there was all of that, so I got why even more clearly with the film, why Sami did the
plea agreement, for his family. But, uh, he wouldn’t admit to anything he hadn’t done and
that he was not proud of having done. And, so, my role has been, since then, to work with
Friends of Human Rights, and what we need to do is to get this thing over with. Now, that’s
what I want to speak about right now, and folks, you got one of these as you came in, we
gave to you, you saw me or John Arnaldi, or someone else, giving you this post card, we’ve
gone to Washington and lobbied in John Conyers’ office, and what we heard from him, and
from the Senate Judiciary Committee chair is that they will not do a hearing just for an
individual case. And so what this post card is about is – let’s do a judicial inquiry into all of
these trials of Muslims in our country, where the juries are rejecting the cases overwhelmingly, but they are these large show trials in the beginning to look good about fighting terrorism. Let’s do an investigation on that, but with a particular focus on this case.

And, so really, this is my plea that tonight, out of us that are here, that we send 500 of these
postcards to John Conyers’ office, and when you do it, on the top, write a note, on the top of it, on the cover, wherever, your own personal note, just a sentence, that it’s not just lobbying you know, with blind mail, make it your own personal card to him, But, please, send these tonight, if you wanna fill them out, we’ll collect them at the end. If you stick a quarter in the basket, that’d be great, for the postage.”

Rob – “All right, let me just ask Line, ah, Line, I want to ask you a question about the film.
How did you get Paul Perez to talk to you? (audience laughter) – How did you get Paul Perez to talk to you?”

Line – “Um – I contacted his office, and I told them I was making a documentary about the
Al-Arian case, and ah, I asked for an interview, and I got it.”

Rob – “Were there things that he wouldn’t answer? Questions he wouldn’t answer?”

Line – “Eh, no, he answered all the questions that we asked, but frankly, I have to say that I
was a little surprised, that ah, there were a lot of things that he seemed not to know. I mean
(laughter), he wasn’t really deep into the case, it seemed to me. So a lot of the questions we
asked, I mean, detailed specifics into the case, he wasn’t able to answer.”

Rob – “So, he wasn’t the lead prosecutors in the case, one of his assistants prosecuted the
case?”

Line – “Yeah, so he was just overlooking it.”

Rob – “Did he seem not to know things that you think he should have known?”

Line – “Emm – it was things I knew, so…” (raucous laughter from the audience)

Rob – “Linda…one of the mysteries about this case is that I read that, five days before the
judge sentenced Dr. Al-Arian, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez came to town. Do we have any idea what went on when he came to town?”

Linda – “I think imagination can fill that in. Of course, I have no proof that – ah, and he
likes to be called General Gonzalez, (scattered laughter) – General Gonzalez spoke with
judge Moody, but if they did, the conversation would go something like this…(upward lilt in
voice) – ‘You have an opportunity in five days, to do the RIGHT THING, and that would be to sentence this terrorist to the maximum amount of time.’ Now, that’s my hypothetical
creation, but, it would not surprise me if there was communication, because the case was
always being run from Washington, D.C. Every decision in this prosecution, came from
Washington, D.C. They sent a special prosecutor, who sat at the table, and was really the co- lead, from the counter-terrorism department, in Washington, D.C., who now, I think, is
Michael Fechter’s best friend, but, ah, every decision including where Dr. Al-Arian was
housed, when he would be transported, everything, they would tell us ‘Well, we’ve gotta
check with Washington on that.’”

Rob – “You know, just as a person who doesn’t practice law, it seems strange that the
prosecution, the Attorney General, would be able to meet with the judge in the case….I mean is there any prohibition against that? I mean I know you’re not saying that it definitely
happened, but..”

Linda – “I’m not saying that…but would there be a prohibition about that? You know,
perhaps, there might be some ethical considerations there that would be at play, but that’s
not for me to say. It is enough to be said, that, at the time of the sentencing, Judge Moody
did bring in his wife, to witness the sentencing, which I thought was very interesting and I
also realized that was a bad omen. Now, I do want to say about Judge Moody, that he had
every right, by the way, and I need to be clear on this, he had every right to sentence Dr. Al-
Arian to the maximum. The plea agreement allowed for a range. We got the prosecution, the
prosecutor, those people who said that he was a professor by day and a terrorist by night, we
got them to say that the minimum amount of time is fine with us, and then he can go. Uhm,
but, it was up to the judge to sentence him, so, Judge Moody could do that. It was how he
did it that was so objectionable and questioned.”

Rob – “Abdullah, I can’t imagine what it was like, and I would like you to tell us what it was
like when you learned that they hadn’t just recorded a few phone calls, that they had four
hundred and seventy two thousand? Is that right?”

Abdullah – “Yeah, right. It was over 19,000 hours, I think it was closer to 20,000 hours. If
you started to play them now it would take three years to get through the whole thing
without stopping. Uhm, obviously it was a complete invasion of privacy, of your entire life, it
was something that worried us a lot, but I think because it happened at the same time as my
father’s case, his arrest, that our top concern at the time was really that, so we just had to
juggle a lot of these concerns at the same time, but clearly it was a huge invasion, and it just
felt that you were living this show for people for all these years.”

Rob – “Of those 400 conversations that they used at the trial, as evidence, were there
conversations that they excluded that would have been exculpatory, that would have shown
your dad in a better light, rather than the 400 that they selected?”

Abdullah – “Linda might be able to speak better to this, but there were a lot of mysterious
gaps in the recordings. We requested all of my father’s phone calls to members of congress, a lot of the stuff that would have shown the totality of all his work. We never got those, those still remain missing for whatever reason. And there were a lot of things that if they had been added to what they presented, would have given a more complete picture. For example,
there would be instances where it would be like an entire hour, and they would pick like a 30
second clip of it, or something. You know, just lacking context in everything that they would
show, and that happened quite a bit. So, you know, we noticed things like where they would
mistranslate like the infamous pancakes incident, where they translated the word pancakes,
where someone said: ‘It’s gonna be a night of pancakes…’ into the word brigades. And so,
they gave it as violent a connotation as they possibly could. There were instances where people were talking about their dreams. So they used dreams as evidence in this trial. It was something straight out of Orwell.”

Rob – “One of the co-defendants had a dream about your dad?”

Abdullah – “That’s right.”

Rob – “And, how did it play out in the court room?”

Abdullah – “I mean it was… The entire situation was so bizarre that you couldn’t help but
laugh most of the time. Especially when the play acting by the prosecutors really kind of
added to the scene sometimes. It was really a strange sight for most people who came in-
and-out and saw that. It was great.”

Rob – “Linda, do you want to add to this?”

Linda – “Well, they had the prosecutors assume the roles of the speakers in the
conversations. So, you had the lead prosecutor was Dr. Al-Arian. (scattered laughter) And
so, Terry Zitek, would be Sami Al-Arian, and he would sort of posture, and try to impose an
artificial and contrived tone on conversations. So, you had a table full of federal prosecutors
reading transcripts like some dreadful play.”

Abdullah – “Probably could have moved it here actually. Better on stage…”

Linda – “But I don’t think they could have sold any tickets. (laughter) And lawyers would
call me at night and say: ‘We dropped by the courtroom and WHAT THE HELL IS GOING
ON IN THERE?’ (lots of laughter) …because it was just so crazy.”

Rob – “Kay, let me go back to you before I forget, I was going to ask you this earlier. Did Fox expect that this was going to be THE BIG TERROR TRIAL of the century, I mean, why did they devote the resources?”

Kay – “Yes.” (laughing – laughter from audience as well)

Rob – “They thought something big was going to happen there?”

Kay – “They did, yeah.”

Rob – “And when you told them, as time was going on: ‘Well, we’re really not getting the
story here, we’re not getting the evidence that they promised at the beginning…”

Kay – “Well, you also have to remember what else was going on at the time, which was
hurricane Katrina. And, a lot of their resources, time, effort, money, was being spent there.
They just sort of forgot about me and left me down there for a good long time (laughing,
Rob laughing along). And, I think…I think they did expect a different result. And I think they would have sent a lot more troops if the tide had been turning. But that was why I was there.
To let them know what they needed to devote. How they needed to…you know…that was my mission. But yeah, they had a preconceived notion, and the evidence just did not go that
way.”

Rob – “Abdullah, have you talked to your dad tonight since the showing of the film?”
Abdullah – “Just now, actually, as soon as the credits rolled, so we were able to speak with
him a little bit and let him know of the tremendous show of support that we got from
everyone here, and he was really pleased to hear that.” (thunderous applause)
“I read a report from Amnesty International that was issued last month that said that
your dad was being held in freezing conditions, that guards had been abusive verbally to
your dad. Talk about the conditions in which he is being held, and where is he being held
right now?”

Abdullah – “As of now he’s being held in a small local jail in Warsaw, Virginia, it’s a tiny
little town about 2 hours outside of Washington, D.C. He’s been transported I think, to over
12 prisons over the last year. So, he’s taking a tour of the country. They call it the diesel
treatment. It’s part of this psychological torture that they undergo. So, it’s actual policy that
they put people through this so that family can’t visit. Every time we find out where he is,
and we figure out a way to go visit him, of course you have to clear all of the general security
measures that they have, and finally get the opportunity to visit, the next thing we know,
he’s off to another place. And it’s really these transportations that are the problem because
this is where they commit the most amount of abuses. They’ll take him, for example, more
than 12 hours without being able to eat anything. Or they’ll take away the clothing that he
has and just give him some rags or something. They’ll put him in these temporary holding
cells that just four walls and the concrete ground. And sometimes it will be freezing wet, cold ground. So, these are the kind of things that they put him through, throughout these moves.”

Rob – “Why do you think they are doing this?”

Abdullah – “Well, I think it’s just part of the abuse. You know, we’ve seen a lot of racism on
the part of the guards. So, someone will say: ‘You’re from Afghanistan, if it was up to me, I
would just put a bullet in your head and get it over with.’ These are the guards that are
speaking to him this way, so, they would basically give him this verbal abuse any time they
would interact with him. These are the kind of things you can’t fight, because it’s a
bureaucratic nightmare when you deal with the bureau of prisons. You can’t issue
complaints. People have tried to call them, and they get no answer, or there’s no
investigation. As of now, we’re told that they are being investigated, but we’re not hearing
anything about them, you know, this is just the cycle that they put us through. And, the more that we’re concerned with his very well being, the less that we are able to do to actually work on his case, and I think that’s part of the strategy also, to make us concerned with just his very safety and well being and his health, so that we can’t concern ourselves with his case.

And they did that throughout the trial. They kept him away at Coleman in solitary
confinement for the entire pre-trial period. We very rarely saw him. And they made it almost
impossible, Linda can tell you how difficult it was, just for her to confer with her client. Just
to be able to prepare before the trial. He was the only pretrial detainee. Along with Sameeh
Hammoudeh from the same case, that were kept at a federal penitentiary, of all places.”

Rob – “Linda, Abdullah mentioned this, what were some of the hardships that you had to go
through while preparing for trial?”

Linda – “Well, when they moved him to Coleman, they had special rules in place. And, one
of the rules was that I was only allowed to bring in 3 inches of documents. Three inches of
documents. Well, the indictment was about 6 inches, so that wasn’t going to work out very
well, and we had to constantly litigate with the prison, with the warden, of course. I was
always searched, and at one point, I wasn’t going to be allowed in, because I was wearing
something that alerted the metal detector, and when uhm I said, well, I’ll get rid of that, and
they said that ‘Oh no, you’ve gotta wear that if you want to see your client.’ (scattered
laughter). Anyway…”

Rob – “This had to do with a piece of women’s clothing…”

Linda – “Well, yes.”

Rob – “Ok.” (lots of laughter)

Linda – “So I volunteered to remove the offensive piece of lingerie, (laughter) and they said:
‘Nooo!, you must wear that!’ So I said ‘Well, show me the rule that says that. Does Bill
Moffitt have to wear that when he goes to see Dr. Al-Arian?’ (vociferous laughter) So, it was
just one thing after another, and then, of course, when I went through that fiasco, they
claimed that I had tried to smuggle in some sort of contraband. So then I asked to see what
kind of contraband that was, and all of a sudden they had an investigation in six hours, and I
was found not guilty. And I didn’t know anything about it. But they uhm, they would not
allow him…I think a lot of people know this already…the first time I saw him led in, he was
bent over with documents on his back. It was heartbreaking. That MY GOVERNMENT was acting so disgracefully. That they couldn’t at least afford (applause) … afford humanity and dignity to a prisoner – that they would afford to serial killers. And, Dr. Al-Arian, at that
point, had been convicted of nothing. So there were a number of bizarre and very prohibitive rules that they would put in place and then take away, just to make it difficult, but we prepared and…”

Rob – “Let me go back to Ron the Juror on a question of security. Ron we noticed in the film that there were barricades set up around the federal building that is just across the street
here. And there were bomb sniffing dogs. I’m just wondering how did you feel as a juror at
the trial, did you feel you were risking your life by appearing on this jury?”

Juror Ron – “Not really. I just kinda thought it was more for show than anything else. In the
beginning I wasn’t sure because they had all sorts of MPs and lots of police and even
people…kind of government security type people, but after a while, I started to realize as I
started hearing the evidence, that it was just for show.

Rob – “They took down all that security the day after the trial.”

Juror Ron – “I was down there the day after the trial and I noticed they were taking it all
down. The first day or two, it was sort of impressive, but after that I kind of realized… I just
didn’t think there was any danger from anyone, so…I mean, from who? We had people who
were saying they weren’t terrorists, so I didn’t think they were going to do anything because
that would be kind of foolish. (laughter) You know, I just kinda figured it was just there, I
don’t know, just kinda to make it look like it was something large.”

Rob – “Sitting there, a few feet away from Dr. Al-Arian, were you able to form an opinion
about him during the course of the trial?”

Juror Ron – “No. No, I didn’t form any opinion. I didn’t talk to him.”

Rob – “Because there was no communication, there was no…you didn’t speak during the
trial.”

Juror Ron – “When we first went in for the jury selection, I didn’t even know what Dr. Al-
Arian looked like. And I had to have one of the other jurors, err, prospective jurors point
him out. Until he pointed him out, I thought it was Mr. Moffitt, because Mr. Moffitt was very large, and very ominous looking. (raucous laughter) I was really kinda amazed to find out when the man said: ‘No, it’s the man with the glasses next to him.’ I just saw this very
studious man just sitting there and it just struck me as odd, I think that might have been
part of the whole thing. I realized that my perspective of everything was so off. It wasn’t
gonna be this big horrifying thing, it was a very common, ordinary looking family man. And
suddenly everything kinda changed. The barricades, everything, it all just seemed to be,
BACKDROP. And I realized it wasn’t this frightening, bald, large man, so… (audience
laughter) everything kinda fell into perspective at that moment.”

Rob – “I’m sure Mr. Moffitt appreciates that too.” (audience laughter)

Linda – “Mr. Moffitt likes to be perceived as scary and ominous. That’s how he wins cases.”
(widespread audience laughter)

Rob – “In a few minutes were gonna open up the floor to questions from the audience, but I want to talk about the appeal for a moment. And Linda, I think people are scratching their
heads and saying, why, he was sentenced in 2006, in April? Is that correct?”

Linda – “Yes.”

Rob – “And he’s still..”

Linda – “Well, it was May first…”

Rob – “May first, I’m sorry … he’s still in prison. What’s going on? And where does the
appeal stand?”

Linda – “Basically, a rogue prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia decided to
subpoena Dr. Al-Arian to testify before a federal grand jury. Dr. Al-Arian had no
information, and nothing to say to this grand jury. And we told this prosecutor that
information. We knew about this prosecutor. He had a history of bigotry and racism against
Muslims. And he also was infamous, for, I think someone had discussed it before…of
snatching Muslims who had been acquitted in cases and then subpoenaing them before the
grand jury and then, when they would testify, he would decide, he would decide that they
were not being truthful and indict them for perjury. So, we knew what this was. This was a
trap for Dr. Al-Arian. And Dr. Al-Arian, we tried to reason with the prosecutor, and the
person who quite frankly, was the lead on that, and had done some of the most incredible
work in this regard, is Jack Fernandez, who’s in the audience today, and Jack argued the
case before Judge Moody on the whole plea agreement and wrote briefs and talked to Mr.
Kromberg and we said to Mr. Kromberg, ‘well, Sami Al-Arian doesn’t have anything to say.

The stuff that you want to know about is 15 years old. And the government in Tampa already has all the evidence about it. Ah, talk to your brothers and sisters in Tampa.’ No, he wanted to do it his way. The event that I think reveals the kind of prosecutor this is: the subpoena went out, and this would mean that they would transport Dr. Al-Arian from where he was serving his time to Virginia, during Ramadan. And so, Mr. Fernandez called the prosecutor and said: ‘Would you mind holding off just for a bit while Ramadan is in place, because if Dr. Al-Arian is in transport, he can’t observe the holiest time of the year for him.’ And this is when Kromberg said: ‘What about those Muslims, all they do is kill each other, and I’m not going to be involved in the Islamization of America. I’m not withdrawing my subpoena.’ So, he did subpoena Dr. Al-Arian. Dr. Al-Arian refused to testify in front of the grand jury. He was cited for contempt. He was put in jail to serve a contempt sentence, and what’s the tragedy here is that while he’s serving the contempt sentence, his sentence on the Tampa case stops. So he gets no credit for that. So, all this time that he has been incarcerated, he gets no credit for the time that he is serving on the Tampa case. They hauled him before a grand jury again, a second time Dr. Al-Arian again refused. So he was cited for contempt again. And our position was: Dr. Al-Arian, when he entered into the plea agreement with the government, was very clear He was going to end all business with the federal government.

He wanted just to serve his sentence and be deported. He was not going to cooperate with
the government. He was not going to testify in front of a grand jury. He was done with the
federal government. I wrote an affidavit to that regard. We had a hearing before Judge
Moody. The United States attorney in Tampa basically said: ‘They’re right.’ They did not
rebut my affidavit. They said, in fact, in the plea agreement there’s usually a paragraph that
says: ‘The defendant will cooperate.’ We insisted upon removing it. And the U.S. attorney
said: ‘We removed it, because we knew that Dr. Al-Arian was never going to cooperate.’ So,
that’s the state of the record, and now, we’re going…we have wonderful council in Virginia,
and we’re going to go back before Judge Lee in Virginia and try to get Judge Lee to see that
this contempt is fruitless and Dr. Al-Arian is not going to testify, and to remove the
contempt so he can resolve the case.”

Rob – “Is there any limit on a contempt sentence?”

Linda – “You know, you can be cited for contempt a number of times, and there are cases
where people have served and journalists have served contempt sentences for a couple of
years. So this is a…but that’s the problem here that we don’t see an end to this. And that’s
also the danger, especially when you have a person in control who is such an obvious racist
and has such an agenda and is running amok, and has such power, it’s a problem.”

Rob – “I’ve got two more questions, but, are people ready to start asking from the audience?
Let me ask about two recent resignations, one is Paul Perez, the U.S. attorney and two is
Michael Fechter at the Tampa Tribune. Let’s talk about Paul Perez for a moment and anyone on the panel can take this. Paul Perez recently stepped down. Does anyone see any
connection to the Al-Arian case with his resignation recently?”

Linda – “Well, I don’t think that either the verdict in the jury trial, or the plea agreement, is
a gold star on Paul Perez’s resume. (some laughter) I think that he realized his time was up,
and he needed to find other work.”

Rob – “And what about Michael Fechter stepping down and going to work for Steve
Emerson. Would anyone like to comment about that?”

Linda – “Well, just very briefly, I think he’s always worked for Steve Emerson, now he’s just
admitted it.” (a “Yeah” from Warren and laughter and applause in the audience)

Rob – “Anyone else on the panel want to talk about that?”

Kay – “No comment.”

Rob – “We are going to start questions from audience. Please keep speeches to two
sentences and questions to about 30 seconds.”

Ahmed – “Before we start doing that, ah, many other attorneys were involved in this case
besides Linda Moreno, –Hatem Fariz, Ghassen Ballut, Sameeh Hammoudeh also had
lawyers and if Kevin, Andrea, Allison and Steven could maybe come up so people can see
you. Just walk down the aisle or something, I know they’re a bit shy. (Applause as they walk
to the front) Stephen Bernstein was representing Sameeh Hammoudeh, he’s from
Gainesville. Kevin Beck was representing Hatem Fariz, and Andrea Stubbs was also, as was
Allison Guagliardo. I guess that’s what’s called the defense Dream Team. If you’re charged
with terrorism, these are the people you want to hire. (laughter) So, you might want to put
them on retainer already. Thanks very much for all the help that you’ve done. Often times
these people sacrificed their time, and their money, because, let’s face it, the defendants
didn’t have all the money in the world to pay these folks and they were very understanding.

And sacrificed a lot and donated a lot of their time, and this is a message, especially for
Muslims, that the people that defended the Muslim defendants in this case, the stateless
Palestinians, not a SINGLE ONE OF THEM was Muslim. And, Steven is actually Jewish, so this whole concept that (applause) – You are Jewish, right (acknowledgement), I knew you were, because I read that in the papers, but this shows that there are people, there are other Americans, and the turnout here today, the majority of the people in this audience and the supporters are not Muslim, they’re not Arab, but they believe in the American justice system, and they believe in justice for even Palestinians, so this is a great message for us,
and I’m very heartened by this, thank you very much.”

Warren – “I’d like to respond, I’ve been sitting here thinking about the question about
Michael Fechter. And it has to do with the Tampa Tribune. And it has to do with what we
have seen in the documentary tonight, and the impact on this family, and the impact on the
other families that were in the trial, and the impact on the Muslim community and on our
community here in Tampa. And it is that there was, there was I would say a persistent and
irresponsible practice of journalism for an extended period of time, and with that, that has
results, that has impacts on people’s lives. And it is really my hope, and I’m sure it is shared
by many of us, that the Tampa Tribune would do what the Quakers would call a query, a
self-examination, asking of questions, because we do see, in this documentary, the impact of
that. I doubt, or I wonder if there would not have been this trial if there had not been all of
that journalism for all of those years? (applause)”

Audience – “I was listening to a talk show the other night and someone came on and said
that Congress passed a military commissions act, which allows the federal government to
take any American citizen, put them in jail without a lawyer, let them do exactly what they
did to Mr. Al-Arian. Can you comment on that, the lady who’s the attorney? And is that true,
can we all be done as Mr. Al-Arian, and even if we can’t, we should still stand up and fight
it.”

Linda – “I can’t comment on that particular statute because I haven’t read it, but what I will
say, which is really the larger question, and that is we are all at risk here. That this is a
cautionary tale, the Al-Arian case, for all of us. We need to care about our civil rights. And
that just doesn’t mean…(applause)…it just doesn’t mean that you buy the book, or whatever.

You need to pay attention, because, there are things that are going on here. I will tell you, I
just got back from Miami, after spending a month in jury selection for the Jose Padilla case.
And, whatever you may think about Jose Padilla, he’s an American citizen, kid from
Chicago, who was taken and put in a dark hole for four years. He was denied council. Of
course, couldn’t see his family. No letters. No phone calls. Only senior interrogators. Now,
that can happen to any one of us. And I think that – and I don’t like to sound dramatic here –
but I think that we need to be very vigilant. We need to care about our civil rights. Because I
think we’re at risk.” (loud applause)

Audience – “I’d like to ask Line whether she considered putting in any element of Bill
O’Reilly’s interview with Dr. Al-Arian, because, up to that point, I don’t think anyone in the
country was familiar with him, was familiar with Dr. Al-Arian. Because the government had
such a weak case, and it makes you wonder whether the attention that was put on him as a
result of that sandbagging sort of pushed them into bringing the case, and I can’t help but
remembering that Fox, you were the only, to the lady who’s a producer from Fox, you were
the only person here who’s from a national cable NEWS channel. Did Fox feel that it had an
investment in this case because it had gone out on a limb since it had decided to attack Dr.
Al-Arian through Bill O’Reilly?”

Line – “I knew about it, and there were a lot of things in the Sami Al-Arian case that I was
thinking about using in the beginning, but there’s only so much you can fit into a 90 minute
documentary. And the case of Dr. Sami Al-Arian is very long and complex, like, for example,
what happened at USF, which the Bill O’Reilly show started, was something I was thinking
about using, but it was too much, and I couldn’t fit it in, so I decided not to mention it.”

Kay – “Yes. They did. I can say that unequivocally, yes, they did.”

Audience – “Hi, first I want to answer something to the gentleman before me, and yes, we
stand and fight. Abdullah and Nahla, please tell Sami that I speak for many people here and
to stay strong, because all of us are behind bars with him, and there’s many people who
believe that the Bush administration was responsible for 9/11, which means that’s how we
got the terrorism to begin with, and Sami hasn’t killed anybody, and the Bush
administration has. (applause) Many people, innocent people, so what can we do about it as
everyday citizens now?”

Rob – “Anyone want to take that?”

Abdullah – “I just want to thank everyone for their support. It really means a lot to us, and I
think you can tell this through the film that we couldn’t have done this alone, and we
couldn’t have survived this by ourselves. And we really had a tremendous outpouring of
support from people all walks of life, from all around the country and right here in Tampa
that were behind us and with us, so we want to extend our gratitude on behalf of my entire
family to them. My father receives hundreds of letters from all over the world, and it’s really
tremendous, and people underestimate just how uplifting and encouraging that can be, and
it’s really done wonders for him and for all of us, so we appreciate that.” (applause)
Audience – “Am I to understand that the judge basically ignored what the jury had to say,
and if so, how does that work? I mean, what is the point of having a jury trial if the judge can make his own decision on what is to happen? So I’d like to hear what you have to say about that. And, I don’t know, maybe Ron has an opinion.”

Linda – “It is the sole province of the judge to sentence. And I can respect and honor that.
The judge, besides hearing the trial, he has a probation and sentence report, and what that
is, is a thorough background of the individual. So that the judge can have before him
everything possible before he comes to a decision about what to do with this particular
person. And, I uhm, I’m in agreement with that system. I’m a proud, proud, American
attorney, and I believe in that system. What I quibble with is that what he seemed to base his
decision on was something that we feel was, we feel, respectfully, inappropriate. But, it is the
sole province of the judge to sentence, and I believe that’s the way it should be.”

Audience – “And the jury does what then?”

Linda – “The jury, and Ron can tell you, because he’s an expert juror now, they are the
finders of facts, they are the judgers of facts, and they decide the guilt or innocence of the
defendant.”

Kay – “Yeah, in this case, they didn’t have any sentencing, it’s different than state courts,
right Linda? In the federal court, the jury doesn’t decide the sentence. – It’s a little different
in state or county court. In federal courts, the jury does not recommend the sentence, all
they did was decide the guilt or innocence or the acquittals in this case. And it’s kind of
confusing, because the jury didn’t have anything to say about the sentencing at all, it’s the
sole property of the judge in federal court.”

Warren – “Wouldn’t it be fair to say that had the jury found Sami Al-Arian guilty, the range
of the sentence would have been much larger. So, that’s the impact of the jury.”

Linda – “Yes, it would have been life.”

Warren – “But, it also, I think it’s fair to say that the jury made it’s decision, and then we
have all these add-ons, to make it so that there’s no end in sight. And that’s where I think the
jury system is….there’s the potential for subversion of the jury system there.”

Line – “What I thought was interesting was why the deliberation was stopped. Why the
judge decided to end the deliberations.”

Rob – “Ron, can you talk about that?”

Juror Ron – “Well, we deliberated for a month, and we were making really good progress. In
the beginning, I doubted we were going to have as many acquittals as we did. But a lot of
people started coming over and saying not guilty, and we started finding a lot of acquittals,
and I think a lot of the people … in the beginning they didn’t mind saying not guilty of some
of the charges, because there were so many of them that they would be able to say guilty on
other charges that we were going to come back to at another time, They thought they had a
majority of the people and they thought they would get some guilty verdicts later on. I’m just
going by what I think. So they didn’t mind saying not guilty for a lot of the acquittals that we
got. When they started realizing that they were losing a lot of votes and finding a lot of
acquittals, I think that two of them just sort of dug their heels in and thought: ‘I’m not going
to let him go completely.’ They just didn’t want to, and I think, when we went in to talk to
the judge, in the beginning they wouldn’t discuss it. They wouldn’t tell us why – they
wouldn’t tell us why they said guilty. They came up with really bad reasons, but most of the
time it was ‘I don’t have to tell you. I don’t even need a reason. I can just say he’s guilty
because I think he’s guilty, and that’s all.’ When we went in and talked to the judge, when
the judge called us out, and said: ‘You need to talk about it, you need to discuss it with each
other.’ That kinda took away that ability from them, and I think that they were afraid. They
were afraid this man was going to walk if they didn’t do something. They didn’t have any
reasons to say guilty, so I think that’s why the letter was written. I think it was in a panic,
‘We’ve got to stop this.’”

Rob – “Well, what did the letter say? These two jurors wrote a letter?”

Juror Ron – “Well, one of them wrote a letter. We were having a very lively discussion, and
they were feeling very pressured, because we were saying ‘Why are you saying guilty,
because I don’t see any evidence here,’ and one juror was saying, in one charge, ‘I don’t have
to tell you, I don’t need a reason.’ The other one, it had something to do with the money and
not having records: ‘He kept very poor records.’ And I said, but we’re dealing with people
who don’t have computer systems, they write their name and a number on a piece of paper
and that’s a receipt. And she said, ‘It doesn’t matter, you need to keep good records, if you’re
gonna have a charity, you need to keep good records.’ And I said, but we’re not dealing with
something from over here, it’s not the same thing, and I think she understood, and I think
she agreed with me, but at the same time, they didn’t want to let it go, they didn’t want this
whole thing to turn into a bunch of acquittals and have him walk away. They didn’t want
him to go. So I think they just dug in, and when they saw they were losing a lot of their
people, they saw that as an opportunity. They were getting frustrated. I think they were
getting kinda frightened, that this wasn’t going their way, and this was a way of stopping it.”

Rob – “Uh, I’ve got another question about the juror, but let the audience ask some more
questions.”

Audience – “I sat through the trial, averaging two days a week, from jury selection to verdict.
I never met Sami until later. And it just dawned on me tonight, to ever shake the man’s
hand, I’ll have to leave my country. And then the question comes up: ‘What’s it going to take
for him to be free? For him to go ahead with finding another home. What’s it gonna take?
What can we do? Is the card gonna help, what else can we do?”

Rob – “Who would like to take that?”

Linda – “This is probably something that should come from the reverend, but prayer, (low
chuckle from Warren), I think is important here, and pray for good lawyers and pray for fair
judges. That’s what we need.”

Rob – “Abdullah, do you have a comment.”

Abdullah – “I think we’ve sent out action alerts, there’s a web site, there’s a lot of
information out there, there are postcards today, every little bit helps, and people don’t
realize it, but these things do make a difference in terms of grassroots action, to fill out a
postcard, to write a letter. It’s better to hand write than to e-mail, it’s better to make a phone
call than to write. You know, it depends on your level of interest and involvement obviously,
but all of these things do help tremendously, in terms of his deportation. It’s obviously
something that the attorneys are working on. They’re looking for a country. There are a
couple of hundred of them out there. We’re going to keep trying until one of them accepts
him, and when we get a release date, we’ll know where he will be. Ideally he would like to
obviously join his family somewhere, it’s obviously going to be difficult for the rest of us to
join him, because we’re living here, the rest of us are American citizens. We kinda have one
foot in every country at that point. But the point here is that he has to be free, and that’s
really our top priority.”
Shouted question from audience: “What’s the Web Site?”

Abdullah – “The Web Site is freesamialarian.com.”

Audience – “My question is in regards to the exposure of the film? Is it going to Sundance?
Has it made it to Cannes? I just very curious as to how much exposure this film is going to
get, and just quickly for all you guys up there: ‘Thank you so much! I’m so happy to be an
American. And it took a Scandinavian film maker and an Islamic family to make this
happen, and unfortunately it’s a tragedy, but thank you.’”

Line – “I can answer that. We have sold the film to six countries. We have a viewer potential
of 55 million in Europe already. We’ve screened it already on national TV in Norway,
Sweden and Denmark, and it will be screened in other European countries. We have a
distributor in Europe who is trying to sell it to TV stations. We are trying to sell it to
television in the states, but I don’t know if you’re allowed to watch a film like this. (laughter)
We are currently looking for a U.S. distributor to put it in theaters, and it will eventually
come out on DVD. That’s what we’re working on now, is trying to get this film out. And it
showed at Hot Docs a couple of weeks ago, which is North America’s largest documentary
film festival, and we’ve shown it in four festivals and we’ve won three awards already, so.”

Warren – “I think that question links to the previous question, which is – what is it going to
take to get Sami free, and I think the most powerful vehicle that we have right now is this
film. And I sure hope that this will be taken up in our country. My sense is, in listening to the audience reaction tonight, though this is Tampa, and though we’ve all lived through this, so it’s visceral for us, and we were really in this film tonight, and that was very encouraging to me at an emotional level, I think that there would be a response in other cities in our country as well, because we all have a sense that – not only like with the film Al Gore put out about the environment being degraded – that our justice system and our civil rights are being
degraded, and this film really, really shows that. So, it’s my hope that this film will be widely
distributed in our country. We’ve got to find a way to do that.” (applause)

Rob – “We’ve got time for two more questions, Ahmed tells me.”

Audience – “Best wishes to the Al-Arian family, congratulations to the filmmaker for a fine
piece of work. The question is for Linda Moreno. You told us the prosecution was basically
directed from Washington, D.C. Is it known what department, what office, or what
individuals were responsible for this direction?”

Linda – “Well, we’re talking about the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Let’s
remember it was John Ashcroft who announced the indictment of my client, claiming that
he was the financial wizard, the North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. So it
was from the very top, from the Attorney General on, and we know that the decisions
regarding the case, the strategies, the witnesses, and Dr. Al-Arian’s conditions of
confinement all came from the Department of Justice, from the office of the Attorney
General.

Audience – “We know that Dr. Al-Arian had, in protest, went on a hunger strike this spring,
and some of us were able to participate in that in solidarity with him. How is his health
now?”

Abdullah – “Of course he spent 60 days on the hunger strike, and he really only ended it at
the urging of my mother. She ended up spending an entire week visiting him, and just
urging him and delivering messages from his family, and from all of his friends that he had
to put an end to the hunger strike. It was pretty clear at one point, that the government was
not going to intervene. The prison officials, although they said they would, never took any
actions to try to end the hunger strike through any feeding or anything. And if you’ve seen
the photos, or at least if you’ve heard some of the reports, it was pretty frightening. It was a
very scary scene for us to see him. He’d lost over 50 lbs, it was over 25% of his body weight
that he’d lost. He was wheelchair bound at one point, and we feared for his very life, so he
had to put an end to it. This decision was really about him not finding any other alternative,
because the government had put before him two options, either it’s a contempt trap or it’s a
perjury trap, and he said, I’m not going to play this game and I’m not going to take either
choice, and so, the hunger strike was meant to generate attention and to give a reason for
people to act and also for the government to rethink it’s decision. In some ways I think it was very successful in generating a lot of support, and we saw tens of thousands of people who took action. I think there was the National Council of Churches who had the action, Amnesty International and several other groups providing grass roots support from all over the country. I think in that sense it was very successful, but it came to a point where we just
feared for his health, and, at this point, he’s been recovering for the past couple of months,
since he ended the hunger strike, he’s doing a little bit better, but it’s difficult given the
conditions that he’s in to regain his strength. He’s gained a little bit of weight, he’s got a bit
of his strength back, but he’s not a full recovery by any means.”

Warren – “But he does have his sense of humor back.”

Abdullah – “Well, that never left. He always had a sense of humor, and he was very
encouraging when we went to visit him.”

Ahmed – “Well, thank you everybody. I want to thank Ron the Juror, Line Halvorsen, Kay
Long Masero, Reverend Warren Clarke, Linda Moreno and Abdullah Al-Arian, and all of you for coming out and staying late. And I’d like to say that although the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune tried to undermine this showing, the number of people who came out show the support in the community.”

Abdullah – “The way that these newspapers have operated all along is that they are
characters in the film, so I think it is really unfair for them to send their news editors and
news reporters to come in and review the film. I was obviously dismayed by the coverage,
but now you’ve seen it for yourselves so you can decide and you can write to these
newspaper editors. But we’ve lived with the way that the media has acted toward us all these
years, both newspapers, without exception, and it’s very unfortunate that they chose to cover
it in this way, considering that these are people that actually are characters in the story, and
they are not exactly removed from it.”

Ahmed – “Finally, I want to thank all the sponsors, WMNF, Amnesty International, the
Tampa Bay Local 240, Friends of Human Rights, and, of course, my organization, the
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), for putting on this event, and we want to
thank you for coming out. Several people have asked me, well why bring a film like this here.
And this was such an important trial for us, that we have to discuss these things. Being
isolationists and refusing to discuss things and not having dialogue, that’s how you divide
communities. In America, you talk about things. When families have problems, they sit
around the table, and they discuss it, and this was our way of providing that forum for you
and hopefully we can continue to do that. And again, we want to thank Rob Lorei for being moderator and all of you for coming out.”