Florida Professor Acquitted of Key Terrorism Charge

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All Things Considered: December 6, 2005

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I’m Robert Siegel.

He was considered one of the most important terrorist figures brought to trial since September 11th, and his indictment was hailed as a triumph of the Patriot Act. Well, today a federal jury in Florida acquitted Sami Al-Arian of aiding a terrorist group. The jury deadlocked on other less-serious charges against him. Reporter Steve Newborn of member station WUSF was in the courtroom in Tampa today.

And, Steve, first tell us about Al-Arian’s reaction to the news.

STEVE NEWBORN reporting:

He put his head in his hands and breathed a sigh of relief. It’s probably the only kind of reaction we’ve seen from him this entire trial.

SIEGEL: Now I want you to remind us what Sami Al-Arian was accused of doing.

NEWBORN: Well, prosecutors portrayed Sami Al-Arian and three other men as part of a criminal conspiracy to raise money for the families of suicide bombers in Israel. They were charged with being essentially the head of North American operations for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Now that was legal in this country until 1995, when a suicide bombing in Israel prompted President Clinton to declare them a terrorist organization in this country.

But the federal government has been tracking Al-Arian for much longer than that, since his relations with a think tank at the University of South Florida in the early 1990s. And a lot of this trial hinged on the wiretap conversations going back quite–well over 15 years. So there were thousands of hours of wiretap conversations the jurors had to wade through, and that’s probably why it took them three weeks to come to their decision today.

SIEGEL: Three weeks of deliberations–to put that in context, the prosecution took about five months to present its case.

NEWBORN: Right. They were trying to paint a picture out of dots that may have not been connected very closely. They had to use wiretap conversations in English and in Hebrew and mostly in Arabic, and this took months of time for them to wade through getting translations, trying to portray the defendants here as being part of a conspiracy to raise money for a terrorist group. And obviously the jury did not buy their arguments today.

SIEGEL: Well, what kind of a defense case was actually presented?

NEWBORN: The defense did not give any case for Sami Al-Arian, which surprised a lot of people. His main attorney, William Moffitt, said his defense was the First Amendment; that anyone in this country is free to say what they want to say and is free to associate with whom they want to associate with. So he chose not to give a defense, which left a lot of people here stunned, but apparently it worked.

SIEGEL: It worked. His indictment on these charges at the time of the indictment was hailed by John Ashcroft, who was then the attorney general. Did federal prosecutors say what this might mean for other terrorist prosecutions?

NEWBORN: No, they haven’t, but it’s obviously a huge setback for the federal government. They had put a lot of prestige and a lot of time and money into this case. So it’ll be interesting to see how this bears in other cases across the country.

GROSS: Steve Newborn, reporter from member station WUSF in Tampa, Florida, who was covering the trial of Sami Al-Arian, which has ended in an acquittal of Al-Arian on charges of aiding a terrorist group, and the jury was deadlocked on some less-serious charges, thanks a lot for talking with us today.

NEWBORN: Thank you.