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Evidence against Al-Arian is shown

A portion of the items seized during a raid on the offices of the organization Al-Arian founded yields what prosecutors say are links to terrorism.

By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published June 9, 2005

TAMPA - On a warm November morning in late 1995, about 10 federal agents pounded on an office door in northeast Tampa and yelled, "We have a search warrant!"

A man holding a bloody towel to his nose opened the door, and the agents began searching 11 rooms. Almost 30 hours later, they carted off 50 boxes of letters, documents, audiotapes, photos, videotapes, brochures, receipts, statements and computer discs.

Wednesday, a portion of these items was entered into evidence in the trial of Sami Al-Arian and three other defendants charged with supporting terrorism.

Among the most significant items the government seized from the offices of the World & Islam Studies Enterprise, or WISE, were:

--Several different pieces of paper with the logo of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Arabic writing on them. The logo resembles an arc over a Viking helmet.

--An Oct. 23, 1995, letter to the British consulate acknowledging that Ramadan Abdullah Shallah works for WISE (which was founded by Sami Al-Arian in 1990). These items are particularly significant because prosecutors are trying to link Al-Arian and his co-defendants to the PIJ, which claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Israel.

The papers with the PIJ logo on them appear to show that WISE officers had communications with the PIJ.

Furthermore, the Oct. 23, 1995 letter about Shallah working for WISE appears to establish that Shallah was on the WISE payroll 10 months after he was declared a terrorist by President Clinton in an executive order issued Jan. 23, 1995.

A few days after the date on the letter, Shallah moved to Syria and became the leader of the PIJ. The raid of the WISE office took place a month later.

However, one item of evidence raises a question: A seized letter dated Nov. 25, 1995, names Bashir Nafi as a 1994 WISE research director. The indictment describes Nafi as a high-level leader of the PIJ. He is listed as a defendant, but was deported from Tampa years before Al-Arian and his co-defendants were arrested, and now lives in England.

The date of the letter was cited by the FBI agent on the witness stand, who was reading aloud the dates on seized evidence at the prosecutor's request.

It is the same date as the raid, which took place about 8:30 a.m., when Mazen Al-Najjar, alone in the office, was having what the testifying FBI agent described as a "bad nosebleed." Which raises the question: Was the letter written before agents arrived early in the morning, before his nosebleed?

Late in the afternoon, defense attorney William Moffitt questioned the authenticity of all of the evidence from the raid, which has been stored for 10 years.

He asked the FBI agent who was reading from the documents and answering prosecutor Terry Zidek's questions: "You can't tell if you're looking at an original or a copy of what was seized, can you?"

"No sir," answered the agent.

"So," said Moffitt, "you can't attest to the accuracy of the log - to the accuracy of the inventory of this evidence - can you?"

"No sir," responded the agent.

After a few moments of silence, presiding U.S. District Judge James S. Moody said that the items were seized, and the agents shouldn't have to say whether they were originals or copies.

"What was seized was seized," Moody said.

[Last modified June 9, 2005, 01:16:07]