TAMPA - Former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian appears to be in for a long wait before the start of his trial.
At a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Moody set a trial date in January 2005, citing the complexity and unique nature of the terrorism-related case.
Al-Arian's attorneys, Jeff Brown and Frank Louderback, vowed to fight the decision, saying their client has a right to a speedy trial.
If the decision was up to them, Brown said, they would start the trial immediately.
The two defense attorneys also balked at Moody's order that they apply for security clearance before they look at the reams of classified evidence in the case.
The background checks, they said, would invade their privacy and could give an advantage to the prosecution.
They also said they did not want to be in the position of possibly breaking the law by sharing classified information with Al-Arian.
"We are drawing a line in the sand," Brown said. "This has been Big Brother."
After an eight-year investigation, federal agents arrested Al-Arian and three other men in February on charges that they supported, promoted and raised money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group considered responsible for more than 100 deaths.
Federal prosecutors say agents taped thousands of telephone conversations over several years - most of them in Arabic - while they had Al-Arian and the other men under surveillance.
Only Al-Arian has refused to waive his speedy-trial rights.
Attorneys for the other three defendants said they will need at least 18 months to examine the evidence.
Federal prosecutors have said that the 250 or so conversations listed in the indictment are available for inspection without security clearance.
On Thursday, federal prosecutor Walter "Terry" Furr told the judge, "All the calls we think are pertinent have been declassified."
That left Brown and Louderback crying foul. They argued outside of court that they and their client should have access to all the conversations, not just the ones the government deems pertinent.
The prosecutors would have used anything they thought was incriminating in the indictment, Brown said.
That means the rest of the conversations are either useless to both sides or favorable to Al-Arian's defense, he said.
"It's nice of them to tell me what is pertinent to my case. Why don't they just try my case for me?" Brown said. "I've never been in a situation where my opponent is deciding what evidence I can use."
Louderback said government officials, particularly U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, could declassify all of the evidence if they wanted it declassified. Louderback doubted that would happen in this case.
"Anything that is favorable (to our case), we think, is going to remain super secret for as long as this trial takes," he said.
Al-Arian and Sameeh Hammoudeh are being held without bail at the Coleman Correctional Facility in Sumter County. The other two defendants, Hatem Fariz and Ghassan Ballut, are out on bail.
- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
