Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Al-Arian trial spotlights computer entries

Prosecutors say that a co-defendant in the case wrote two messages praising martyrs on a PIJ Web site in 2001.

By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published October 12, 2005

TAMPA - As late as January, 2003, a defendant in the federal trial of Sami Al-Arian was receiving internal memos from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to government evidence.

Tuesday, the evidence centered on defendant Hatem Fariz and three entries on his computer, which were discovered after February 2003, when the FBI seized the computer and arrested him.

Besides the internal memo from the PIJ, an FBI computer forensic specialist found two 2001 guest book entries on a PIJ Web site, which prosecutors allege Fariz wrote and sent.

Both entries dealt with the praise of martyrs. The first, written in October 2001, mourned the death of Palestinian martyrs, focusing upon the former PIJ leader Fathi Shikai who had been murdered six years before in Malta. The second entry, written a month later, praised a young man who was killed after murdering two Israeli children.

The guest book entries are signed from a nonexistent e-mail address at "hohmail.com." Prosecutors say it is from Hatem Fariz at hotmail.com.

Fariz, along with Al-Arian and two other co-defendants, is charged with conspiring to raise money to further the violent acts of the PIJ, which has claimed responsibility for more than 100 deaths in Israel and the occupied territories. Prosecutors say the Web site information shows Fariz's knowledge of that violence, as well as his continuing correspondence with the PIJ.

The January 2003 internal memo from the General Cultural Committee of the PIJ on his computer told Muslims it is a sin to kill other Muslims without justification. In the context of the 2001 Afghanistan war and the threat of the 2003 Iraqi war, there was much debate between 2001 and 2003 among Muslim scholars, in the U.S. and around the world, over whether Muslims were allowed to kill other Muslims.

The PIJ weighed in on the topic with this beginning sentence: "The Sanctity of a Muslim's blood is above all considerations."

Throughout the day, defense attorneys objected to the presentation of evidence. At one point, Fariz's lawyer, Allison Guagliardo, told the judge she was concerned that new information was about to be entered into evidence that the defense had not seen.

U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. told her: "Rather than anticipate the horrible, let's proceed."

[Last modified October 12, 2005, 00:18:12]