The 10 biggest stories of the decade in Tampa Bay
December 27, 2009 at 10:06 am by Mitch Perry
I came here from San Francisco to work for WMNF radio in the spring of 2000. (On that first weekend, Erin Brockovich was the must-see movie of the moment and the Gators were playing in the Final Four.) Since then, I’ve learned a lot about the area’s pre-2000 politics, but it was the first decade of the 21st century for which I had a front-row seat. Here’s my take on the biggest stories of the last ten years in Tampa Bay.
1. Sami Al-Arian (2001, 2003, 2005)
The Sami Al-Arian saga dominated the first part of this decade, a potent brew of politics, academia and post-9/11 paranoia. The story actually began in the mid-1990s, when the former USF computer science professor was suspended with pay by the university after it learned that the FBI was investigating Al-Arian’s think tank WISE (World Islam Studies Enterprise) in the wake of a provocative PBS documentary by terrorism researcher Steven Emerson.
Al-Arian had been reinstated at USF by the beginning of the decade, though this reporter grew familiar with his case while covering the detention hearing of his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar (who had been arrested in 1997 for alleged visa problems). While attending Al-Najjar’s detention hearings in Bradenton in the fall of 2000, I was struck by how much of it was not about Al-Najjar at all, but Sami Al-Arian. It seemed that the government was trying to squeeze Al-Najjar to possibly spill whatever beans there were on Al-Arian, but to the government’s frustration that never happened. At the end of 2000, a federal judge ordered Al-Najjar to be freed — a rare happy moment in a family whose lives were to be rocked dramatically for years to come.
Two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks shocked America, Al-Arian appeared on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor. Although Al-Arian said little if anything of substance on the program, just having O’Reilly recite the previous allegations about Al-Arian to a nationwide audience was enough to enrage an angry American populace, and USF was littered with calls and emails attacking the school for employing him.
(In the program, O’Reilly asked Al-Arian about former WISE official Ramadan Shallah, who after departing Tampa in the ’90s soon became the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or PIJ, a Middle East group officially labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 1997.)
USF placed Al-Arian on paid leave less than 48 hours after his Fox News appearance. Then stunningly, a few days before Christmas in a move led by trustee Dick Beard, the university announced that the professor would be fired.
For the next year and a half, speculation spread that the FBI was investigating Al-Arian, and that the next shoe would drop at anytime. In late February of 2003, it finally did, when Al-Arian was arrested with three others and charged in a 50-count indictment with assisting the PIJ.
His trial finally began in June of 2005. In another dramatic moment in the history of the case, on December 13th, 2005, the federal jury in Tampa acquitted Al-Arian on eight of 17 counts and deadlocked on the others with 10-2 favoring acquittal.
But Al-Arian was not freed from jail. In February of 2006, he admitted to one count of conspiracy to contribute services to or for the benefit of the PIJ. For his detractors (including some, like the St. Petersburg Times editorial board, who had defended him but then turned tail after the feds intervened), it was a literal admission of guilt, case closed.
For his supporters, however, it was seen as a step toward establishing a specific date for his release. But the odyssey continued when Al-Arian refused to testify in a different case involving an Islamic think tank in Northern Virginia. He went on several hunger strikes to express his anger at his treatment.
Finally, this past spring, Sami al-Arian was freed after immigration officials failed to explain his continued detention pending a trial for refusing to testify before a grand jury.
The final chapter will extend into the coming decade; currently Al-Arian remains under home detention at his daughter’s residence in Virginia.
2. Terri Schiavo (2005)
3. Florida Recount (2000)
4. Four hurricanes in seven weeks (2004)
5. The firing of Steve/Susan Stanton (2007)
6. Hillsborough County bans gay pride (“little g, little p”)
7. Tampa Bay chooses LGBT leaders (2008, 2009)
8. Buddy Johnson’s reign of error (2003-2008)
9. Obama beats McCain in Florida and wins the White House (2008)
10. Tampa Bay teams win! (2003, 2004, 2008)
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