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Sami Al-Arian: The week in review

By Times Staff
Published August 8, 2005

Former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian and three co-defendants are on trial in federal court, accused of using Islamic charities as fronts in a conspiracy to finance terrorist attacks by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. With the trial expected to last six months, the St. Petersburg Time is providing a weekly summary of the previous week's important developments.

THE LATEST: Last week, most of the testimony in the federal trial of Sami Al-Arian and three other defendants centered on 1994 and 1995 FBI wiretaps of Al-Arian's phone conversations and faxes. According to prosecutors, they revealed: Al-Arian proposed a plan to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to revamp its money management in January 1994. But within months, the PIJ leadership ignored his financial plan and blocked funding for his Tampa think tank, World and Islam Studies Enterprise.

Desperate to keep WISE open and running, Al-Arian planned to transfer money from the PIJ treasurer's account in Gaza to his Tampa account, without the PIJ treasurer's knowledge, according to prosecutors. While planning the secret transfer, Al-Arian received a fax from the head of the PIJ about an April suicide attack at Afula that killed eight Israelis, and appeared to be a joint effort of Hamas and the PIJ. Al-Arian passed on the news in the fax that said Hamas put $90,000 into the operation.

In the following months, Al-Arian gave up on his financial plan for the PIJ and his plan to get PIJ money for WISE, instead, turning his sights on getting Hamas and the PIJ to work together on non-violent projects. But in the midst of lobbying the PIJ for these "political, social and educational programs ... with no military-oriented action," he received word of another PIJ attack in November 1994 and applauded it in a return fax to PIJ leaders, according to government transcripts.

Two months later, after another PIJ attack in January 1995, which killed 22 Israeli soldiers at Beit Lid Israel, President Clinton issued an executive order, declaring Hamas, the PIJ and their top leaders as "specially designated terrorists." In a phone conversation secretly recorded by the FBI, Al-Arian expressed great surprise over the designation, calling it "propaganda." But after the order was issued on Jan. 23, 1995, it became illegal in the United States to help the PIJ with anything that could end in terrorism.

Prosecutors charge that Al-Arian, Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Ballut and Hatem Fariz used Islamic charities in the United States for just this purpose - to help fund Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist acts. But so far, despite showing emotional support and knowledge of such acts, the FBI wiretaps have not yet shown a clear connection between defendants' communications and the actual funding of PIJ terrorist acts.

The PIJ has claimed responsibility for killing more than 100 people in Israel and the occupied territories.

WHAT'S NEXT: Today, prosecutors continue to read from transcripts of the wiretaps of Al-Arian's conversations and faxes in 1995, with FBI Agent Kerry Myers explaining their contents to jurors.

[Last modified August 8, 2005, 04:24:49]