Muslim Professor Faces US Terror Trial

High-flying professor faces US terror trial

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Monday June 6, 2005, The Guardian

Sami al-Arian is used to mixing in elite political circles. The University of Florida professor met leading politicians such as Bill Clinton and George Bush in his role as the most high-profile advocate of the Palestinian cause in America. He was even invited to White House briefings.

But for more than two years, Dr Arian has been consorting in rather less rarefied company, in the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Coleman, Florida.

The professor of computer engineering goes on trial today in what is being billed as the most important terrorism case in the United States since September 11.

Prosecutors claim that Dr Arian, and three other Arab-Americans who will be in the dock with him, commanded an Islamic Jihad cell that flourished in Tampa and infiltrated the University of South Florida. The group is said to have helped finance a series of attacks in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel in which more than 100 people died, including at least one American.

More than 100 Israelis, including survivors of terrorist attacks, victims' relatives, police investigators and paramedics, have been listed to testify at the trial, in an attempt by prosecutors to show the jury the grisly end-product of terrorist fundraising. Papers, pictures and tapes of wiretaps have been sent from Israel.

The 53-count indictment also accuses the defendants of racketeering, conspiracy and extortion. "This is an elitist little group of people, all highly educated, trying to convince people to go kill themselves on their behalf," is how William Furr, the lead prosecuting attorney, described the defendants at a pre-trial hearing last week.

However, supporters and lawyers for the Kuwait-born professor claim that it is not a straightforward case of terrorist funding. Instead, they say it raises serious issues about anti-Muslim bias in the US post-September 11, freedom of speech and what they see as a blatant attempt by Israel to silence a powerful Palestinian voice in America.

William Moffitt, a veteran civil rights lawyer who is representing Dr Arian, believes that his client is in the dock because of the cause he represents rather than any crimes he has committed. "He is an effective political operator. The idea that here is this guy who is speaking to the highest echelons of the US government, I imagine, makes him a threat in [Israeli] minds."

He continued: "I do find it very offensive that the Israelis would reach out here to try to silence an advocate of the other side in the US."

A spokesman for the prosecution refused to comment, but the Israeli embassy in Washington insisted that the case was not being run from Israel. "The trial was initiated by US authorities, following the killing of a US citizen in a Palestinian Islamic Jihad attack against Israel," said a spokesman.

An FBI investigation of Dr Arian began more than 10 years ago following a television documentary, Jihad in America, which focused on the activities of the World Islam and Studies Enterprise, a thinktank set up by the professor and his brother-in-law, Mazen al-
Najjar, who was also a professor in Tampa until he was deported in 1997.

The prosecution says the thinktank and a Palestinian charity set up by Dr Arian served as fronts for funnelling money to terrorists in Israel and the occupied territories, who then carried out attacks, including a 1995 suicide bombing that killed an American, Alisa Flatow.

Dr Arian denies any involvement in terrorism, but his image in Florida has not been helped by a video taken in the early 1990s in which he is seen shouting: "Death to Israel".

Mr Moffitt has compared his client to Nelson Mandela. And if Dr Arian was such an awful terrorist, the lawyer said, why was he able to get so close to some of America's most high-profile politicians?

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