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Al-Arian appeals sentence
The defense says the judge sentenced the former USF professor for crimes he did not commit.
By MEG LAUGHLIN
Published May 10, 2006
Sami Al-Arian filed a notice of appeal Wednesday to protest his 57-month prison sentence. As part of a plea deal, Al-Arian was sentenced May 1 to the maximum allowed in the plea deal for his crime -- helping associates of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) with nonviolent activities. In December, after a six-month trial, Al-Arian received 17 not-guilty verdicts for helping the PIJ. There were eight acquittals and nine deadlocked counts. The jury acquitted him of conspiring to further the violence of the PIJ. But at sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge James S. Moody said he was giving Al-Arian the maximum sentence because he had "created orphans and widows." Al-Arian's plea deal specifically avoided any admission of a connection to violence. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a terrorist organization that has taken credit for hundreds of killings in Israel and the occupied territories.
[Last modified May 10, 2006, 17:16:20]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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