The Al-Arian verdict
A Times EditorialThe fact that Sami Al-Arian was acquitted on eight counts and won a mistrialon nine others demonstrates the fairness of the U.S. justice system.
Published December 7, 2005
In the end, the government simply couldn't connect the dots in a way that convinced 12 jurors.
While it was clear that Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida computer science professor, had been a fundraiser for an Islamic extremist group that had engaged in terrorism against Israel, federal prosecutors were not able to establish a sufficient link between Al-Arian's association with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the group's terrorism. The government's failure to demonstrate that Al-Arian was part of an active conspiracy to engage in illegal acts meant that all prosecutors could show was guilt by association, not a basis for a criminal conviction.
The fact that Al-Arian was acquitted on eight counts and won a mistrial on the other nine charges demonstrates the fairness of the American justice system. At a time when the threat of terrorism keeps our nation on edge, a group of citizens put aside their personal unease, carefully weighed the evidence and applied the law as they understood it.
Even though Al-Arian was not convicted of supporting terrorist acts, he stands exposed for what he is - a carrier of hate. He is not just an innocent academic with unpopular views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as he has so often claimed, or a "prisoner of conscience." The trial demonstrated that Al-Arian was deeply connected to the PIJ, which is believed responsible for more than 100 deaths in the Middle East. He was described by his own lawyers as a fundraiser for the "charitable arm of the PIJ." And Al-Arian was not blind to the group's monstrous tactics, as he was the regular recipient of faxes announcing the group's suicide bombings.
During the trial, prosecutors showed a video of Al-Arian glorifying the death of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy who tossed stones at Israeli soldiers. Speaking before a Cleveland audience in 1991, Al-Arian said: "The stones that the boy, who is less than five years old, carries, and this mother, who receives the martyrdom of her children with smiles and trilling cries of joy, because her son has died; rather he has been martyred for the cause of Palestine."
He continued: "Thus is the way of jihad. Thus is the way of martyrdom. Thus is the way of blood, because this is the path to heaven."
In a 1994 fax, Al-Arian wrote to PIJ headquarters after a suicide bombing, that "pride and glory overwhelm us."
Since there are nine counts against Al-Arian where the jury deadlocked, the government has the choice to retry him. But after a trial that took 22 weeks, during which the government called dozens of witnesses, offered nearly 400 transcripts of the defendants' phone conversations and faxes, and details of almost $2-million in money transfers between the United States and countries in the Middle East, yet failed to obtain a single guilty verdict, there is a strong likelihood that another jury would come to similar conclusions.
The men and women who struggled for 13 days to come to a decision did their duty. They carefully parsed a complex 51-count indictment against four defendants and took seriously the instructions of U.S. District Court Judge James Moody, who reminded them that holding even odious ideas, as Al-Arian does, is a protected freedom.
The government should weigh its next move carefully. As a legal resident, Al-Arian has abused this nation's hospitality and engaged in conduct that may warrant his deportation. The trial has laid bare Al-Arian's involvement in one of the most violent groups in the Middle East. He may now claim an acquittal, but he can never again claim moral innocence.