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Election 2004
Group buys half-page ads criticizing Castor
The ads' theme: The Senate candidate allowed Sami Al-Arian to run a "Jihad U" while she was president of USF.
Associated Press
Published July 23, 2004
MIAMI - A group critical of Democratic Senate candidate Betty Castor is placing newspaper ads across the state, accusing her of allowing "the University of South Florida to become Jihad U."
The half-page ads, paid for by the American Democracy Project, show images of Castor, the former USF president, and Sami Al-Arian, a former university professor under indictment on federal charges he used an academic think tank affiliated with USF and a charity as fronts for terrorist fundraising.
The ad asks: "Why did Betty Castor allow the University of South Florida to become Jihad U?" and accuses her of ducking questions on her handling of the case.
Castor led the university when it became known in the mid 1990s that the FBI was investigating ties between Al-Arian and others to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Castor suspended Al-Arian with pay for two years in 1996, citing a pending federal investigation. Al-Arian returned to teaching two years later, but was suspended in 2001 by current USF president Judy Genshaft and fired in 2003.
Castor has said she didn't have enough evidence to fire Al-Arian and had to rely on the FBI, which took eight years to arrest him.
Castor spokesman Matt Burgess called the ads "just another desperate, deceptive attack from Peter Deutsch's front group." American Democracy Project's founder, attorney Bernie Friedman, is a longtime friend of U.S. Rep. Deutsch, one of Castor's opponents for the party's nomination in the Aug. 31 primary. Deutsch's campaign has denied any involvement with the group.
The ads were expected to appear in six large metropolitan daily newspapers in Florida during the next week at a cost of $40,000 to $50,000. Castor's campaign was sending a letter to the editors of the papers.
[Last modified July 23, 2004, 09:28:00]
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