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What they're saying

By Times Staff Writer
Published December 7, 2005

"I've got to accept our system, but it's distressing to me. I went to a number of the trial sessions. What I heard convinced me that (Sami Al-Arian) definitely was chief paymaster for (Palestinian Islamic) Jihad. We're going to be collaborating in our own demise because eventually the INS will begin deportation and then if he gets sent back (to the Middle East) he can do us some damage."

- Norman Gross, president of Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting and a longtime critic of Al-Arian

"I'm absolutely delighted. They had 10 years to investigate this guy, thousands of hours of wiretaps. They had the CIA, the FBI and Israeli intelligence gathering evidence. After all that, they couldn't get 12 people to agree on one count guilty. I think that sends a message: Let this man get on with his life."

l - Bob McKee, Al-Arian's former attorney

"When I first saw the indictment of Al-Arian, I called it a work of fiction. The jury's verdict bears that out. I knew from the beginning that the government's transcripts were flawed. ... The verdict is a stinging rebuke on this government's war on terrorism that has become the government's war on free speech."

l - Nicholas Matassini, former Al-Arian attorney

"I think it was a good try by the prosecution. When you deal with an indictment of this size, the jury has to absorb a lot of information and connect a lot of dots. ... The jury did the best they could do. But the acquittal sets back this type of prosecution. ... I knew a conviction wouldn't bring Alisa back. But at the same time I did hope it would send a signal and inhibit other people from sending money overseas to these groups."

l - Stephen Flatow, father of 20-year-old Alisa, who was killed in Israel in 1995 by a suicide bomber

"They never connected Sami Al-Arian to a single illegal act, here or abroad. ... When you fight the war on terror, you need to focus on terrorists, not on people whose political associations you find distasteful."

l - David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who represented Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, in an earlier deportation case during the 1990s

"After following the Al-Arian case in the media - where he and his co-defendants were so vilified - it was encouraging to see our judicial system give the presumption of innocence. It reaffirms our faith as American Muslims in the U.S. legal system."

l - Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

"While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the evidence we presented in court against Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants."

l - Statement from Department of Justice

"Remember, the government lost a major trial against John Gotti, it didn't give up on the war against organized crime. So I think the fact the jury was deadlocked on nine of the charges showed that there were jurors who still believed that he was guilty of some of the most serious allegations made against him."

l - Steve Emerson, whose Jihad in America documentary first focused public attention on Al-Arian, appearing on The O'Reilly Factor

"Doesn't the government run the risk ... of making this guy into a martyr now? Because you know papers sympathetic to him, some newspapers - I'm not going to name them, I'm going to wait until the coverage comes out tomorrow - are going to say, "You see, this is an abuse of power. The Patriot Act is abusive.' You know what they're going to do."

l - Bill O'Reilly

"I think it (the verdict) was rather stunning. Given the fact the federal government has been investigating him off and on for eight or 10 years, and given the magnitude of evidence it said it had, the result raises two consequences - either it was massive incompetence on the part of the federal government, for which there should be accountability, or that they simply did not have the evidence (the government) needed."

l - John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, who attended conferences at Al-Arian's WISE institute

"A lot is in the hands of the government. I'm very confident the worst is over. That I can assure you."

l - Sami Al-Arian

[Last modified December 7, 2005, 00:34:15]