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Expert tries to explain PIJ link

The prosecution witness testifies that Sami Al-Arian made contributions to "cover organizations."

By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published June 22, 2005

TAMPA - Federal prosecutors in the trial of Sami Al-Arian hoped a key government witness Tuesday would help jurors understand how Al-Arian and three co-defendants conspired to fund suicide bombings in Israel and the occupied territories.

Michael Levitt, a scholar in a Washington, D.C., think tank on the Middle East, talked knowledgeably about extremist groups, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

But he did not connect the Tampa defendants to funding the suicide bombings.

Levitt told prosecutor Cherie Krigsman that he believed Sami Al-Arian was part of "economic jihad," which Levitt described as "raising funds, masking funds and transferring funds" for the PIJ.

The connection to PIJ violence, Levitt said, was made through contributions to charities in the Gaza Strip.

"Cover organizations," Levitt called them.

But he gave no detail to explain how Al-Arian or the other defendants used these charities to fund activities that led to suicide bombings.

Defense attorney Stephen Bernstein asked Levitt if it would "be fair to say that economic jihad could be for charity, say for blind children."

"Yes," said Levitt, "assuming it's in good faith."

Defense attorney Bruce Howie asked him if lessening poverty in the occupied territories wouldn't mean that there would be less violence.

"There is a desperate need in Gaza refugee camps to alleviate suffering on the ground," Levitt said. "But I can't say what effect it would have on violence."

Levitt is director of the terrorism studies program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He wrote a book on how Hamas used charities as fronts to fund terrorism.

Defense attorney William Moffitt pointed out that Levitt had also been an FBI counterintelligence agent between 1998 and 2001, assigned to the investigation of Al-Arian. Moffitt questioned his ability to be neutral.

"I think I am," Levitt said.

Krigsman also asked Levitt to identify photos taken from Al-Arian's home during a February 2003 FBI search.

Several of the photos were of Ramadan Shallah, taken at a 1991 conference of the Islamic Committee for Palestine, which Al-Arian founded. In 1995, Shallah left a Tampa think tank, also founded by Al-Arian, to become the leader of the PIJ.

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 01:08:17]