Al-Arian jurors get a break - with homework
Prosecutors regroup after their witness list shrinks; they send jurors home with a PIJ manifesto for leisure reading.
By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published June 30, 2005
TAMPA - No more witnesses. That was the surprise announcement that the federal judge made Wednesday in the trial of Sami Al-Arian.
U.S. District Court Judge James S. Moody dismissed shocked and elated jurors at about 2:30 p.m., giving them the rest of the day, as well as today, off, so prosecutors could regroup.
"Prosecutors tell me they've run out of witnesses," Moody said.
The reason for the sudden gap in the list of 203 prosecution witnesses: Prosecutors planned to bring in four people to talk about Palestinian Islamic Jihad information on Web sites, but Moody, questioning the origin of the Web sites, put a hold on that testimony.
Also, prosecutors lost more witnesses when both sides in the case agreed not to contest the basic facts concerning 14 Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist acts in the occupied territories. And they agreed that the defendants were not directly involved in those acts.
This stipulation between prosecutors and defense attorneys means that 48 witnesses will not come from Israel to describe the horrors of PIJ attacks.
It also means that the trial will last no more than four months, said defense attorney Stephen Bernstein. The trial was previously expected to last six to nine months.
And today, while jurors are off, attorneys for both sides are scheduled to meet with the judge to discuss whether they can forgo presenting detailed testimony about three more PIJ terrorist acts. If an agreement can be reached, prosecutors will forfeit more witnesses with horror stories, which would further reduce the case's emotional impact.
Prosecutor Cherie Krigsman sent the jurors on their surprise vacation with something to think about: a PIJ manifesto seized in November 1995 during an FBI search of the offices of the World and Islam Studies Enterprise in Tampa. Al-Arian founded WISE in 1990.
Krigsman gave each juror a copy of the 37-page document, titled "the internal bylaws," and then read excerpts.
The bylaws advocate "the rejection of any peaceful solution for the Palestinian Cause, and the affirmation of the jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only option for liberation." Krigsman pointed out sections of the manifesto that prosecutors hope will eventually link the defendants, on trial for conspiring to fund terrorism, to the violent acts of the PIJ.
Krigsman's excerpts focused on PIJ violence and martyrdom and how spreading the ideology of both could be done through work in the kinds of organizations with which the defendants were involved.
But before she began reading from the document, the judge had a caveat for the jury: While the document "advanced the PIJ conspiracy," he said, it didn't mean that the defendants were linked to the conspiracy.
"It should not be accepted by you as proof of being a member of such a conspiracy," Moody said. "It could be for scholarly pursuit. Mere possession by itself does not prove membership in anything."
Krigsman also read about a special committee whose job is to distribute "the allowances of the prisoners and martyrs. ... Its activity is directly linked to abroad," she read at the conclusion of the presentation of the document.
Earlier in the day, prosecutor Alexis Collins sought to link a transfer of funds to the occupied territories with defendant Hatem Fariz. The government, however, did not connect the money to PIJ terrorist acts.