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Papers preview tactics for al-Arian retrial

Prosecutors have yet to decide which hung charges to pursue in a new trial of the former USF professor.

By JENNIFER LIBERTO
Published January 14, 2006

TAMPA - Federal prosecutors on the Sami Al-Arian case offered a legal peek Friday into how they might prosecute the former University of South Florida professor on charges that a jury could not agree upon last month.

Al-Arian was acquitted of eight counts of raising money for violent acts of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Israel after a six-month trial. The judge declared a mistrial on nine other counts because the jurors could not agree.

Al-Arian's co-defendant Hatem Fariz was acquitted on 25 counts, with mistrials declared on eight other charges. Defendants Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Ballut were acquitted of all charges.

Prosecutors had said at a hearing last week that they needed to look into which counts they planned to retry. In a detailed 21-page motion filed Friday, they say all the hung charges are worth pursuing.

Prosecutors say they presented enough proof against both Al-Arian and Fariz on the hung counts for a "reasonable jury to find them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

Al-Arian's Tampa attorney, Linda Moreno, said prosecutors "want to pretend that the six-month trial that they put on never happened," adding, "Their definition of a "reasonable jury,' in this case, is one which ignores their lack of evidence and votes blindly for guilt."

The rest of the prosecution motion detailed a potential course of action for the government, arguing that prosecutors don't have to prove he "personally committed a substantive crime" to prove that he conspired with others to commit the crime, or participated in an enterprise that violated racketeering laws.

For example, on the remaining count accusing Al-Arian of conspiring to violate racketeering laws, prosecutors said it doesn't matter that Al-Arian was cleared of the count charging him with conspiring to "murder, maim or injure persons" abroad.

Dismissing the assertion that Al-Arian faces double jeopardy, the prosecutors said, "The Supreme Court has long held that there is no double jeopardy bar to retrial ... of charges upon which the jury failed to reach a verdict."

They say evidence shows Al-Arian was an active member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's governing council, and say he was deeply involved in their finances and leadership long after 1995, when the U.S. government designated the PIJ a terrorist group. They say he acted to hide PIJ assets, sustain the organization and protect "the United States PIJ cell."

Times staff writer Meg Laughlin contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 14, 2006, 01:38:14]