Sami Al-Arian indictments and trial

Al-Arian was tried with co-defendants Ghassan Ballut, Hatim Fariz, and Sameeh Hammoudeh in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa, beginning on June 6, 2005.[8] At trial, FBI agent Kerry Myers testified that the PIJ had planned an attack inside the U.S., but that all information about the plot was classified and he could not discuss it. Under cross-examination, Myers admitted that the PIJ had never carried out an attack outside Israel and the "occupied territories." Myers also testified that during its 10-year investigation of the defendants, the FBI intercepted 472,239 telephone calls on 18 tapped lines. However, none involved any discussion of an attack against the U.S. or reflected advance knowledge of attacks in the Middle East.[9] Furthermore, some of the conversations occurred before PIJ was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1995.[10]

The five-month trial featured 80 witnesses and 400 transcripts of intercepted phone conversations and faxes. At the end of the prosecution's case, Al-Arian's attorneys rested without offering a defense, and the trial concluded on November 14, 2005.[8] On December 6, 2005, after 13 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted Al-Arian on 8 of 17 counts.[8] It deadlocked on the 9 other counts,[8] with 10-2 favoring acquittal. The jury deadlocked on what the prosecutors described as three of the most important four conspiracy charges against Al-Arian, including the charge of conspiracy to provide services to the PIJ.[11] A co-defendant also was acquitted on some charges and faced deadlocks on others, and two co-defendants were acquitted of all charges. U.S. Justice Department officials said they were considering whether to retry Al-Arian and co-defendant Hatem Fariz on the jury deadlock charges, one of which carried a life sentence.[12]

Jurors had mixed reactions.[13] One who voted for acquittal said, "They have so little on [Al-Arian] that I'm disappointed. Most of us think he gave in because he was so sick of being in jail."[13] But one of the few jurors who believed Al-Arian was guilty on nine counts, causing a mistrial, said:

Like another person on the jury, I was convinced Mr. Al-Arian was still working with the PIJ after it was illegal. He was a very smart man and knew how not to be obvious. For me, the absence of evidence didn't mean there was no evidence. For me, it suggested a coverup, which he admitted to, in the plea agreement.[13]

On February 28, 2006, Al-Arian signed a plea agreement in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to contribute services to or for the benefit of the PIJ, a Specially Designated Terrorist organization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.[5][14] In return, the U.S. Attorney: a) agreed to dismiss the other eight remaining charges in the superseding indictment; b) agreed not to charge Al-Arian with any other crimes known to the government at the time of the execution of the agreement; c) agreed not to enter any recommendation as to the imposition or amount of a fine; d) agreed with Al-Arian that an appropriate sentence would be 46–57 months in prison; and e) covenanted that if no adverse information were received suggesting such a recommendation to be unwarranted, the U.S. would recommend that Al-Arian receive a sentence "at the low end of the applicable guideline range, as calculated by the Court".[5]

In the agreement, Al-Arian said that he was pleading guilty because he was "in fact" guilty.[5] Al-Arian admitted knowing "that the PIJ achieved its objectives by, among other means, acts of violence."[15] As part of the deal, Al-Arian agreed to be deported once his prison sentence ended.[5][11]

The plea agreement provided that it was "limited to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida and the Counterterrorism Section of the Department of Justice, and cannot bind other federal, state, or local prosecuting authorities."[5][16] It also provided that it "constitutes the entire agreement between the government and [Al-Arian] ... and no other promises, agreements, or representations exist or have been made to [Al-Arian]".[5][16]

Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said:

We have a responsibility not to allow our nation to become a safe haven for those who provide assistance to ... terrorists. Sami Al-Arian has already spent significant time behind bars, and will now lose the right to live in the country he calls home as a result of his confessed criminal conduct on behalf of the [PIJ], which is the same conduct he steadfastly denied in public statements over the past decade.[11]

At the plea agreement hearing, U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun said, " if you're satisfied you're guilty or you believe it's in your best interest to plead guilty ... let me know that." Al-Arian replied, "I believe it's in my best interest to enter a plea."[17]

The district court judge asked Al-Arian whether he had been promised anything else by anyone to induce his guilty plea, and he said that he had not.[16] The plea agreement was unsealed and accepted by Judge James S. Moody on April 17, 2006.[11] The count carried a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.[5] Al-Arian remained in custody pending his sentencing and deportation.

The deal came after 11 years of Federal Bureau of Investigation investigations, wiretaps and searches, and three and a half years of trial preparation, time Al-Arian spent in jail, most of it in solitary confinement.[17] Amnesty International said Al-Arian's pre-trial detention conditions "appeared to be 'gratuitously punitive'", and that "the restrictions imposed on Dr. Al-Arian appeared to go beyond what were necessary on security grounds and were inconsistent with international standards for humane treatment.".[18]

Supporters of Al-Arian said the agreement was reached in part to end his family's suffering and to reunite them.[15][19][20]

On July 25, 2006, Fariz pleaded guilty to one count of providing nonviolent services to associates of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison. He was released on May 26, 2010.[21]

Judge Moody sentenced al-Arian to the maximum 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release on May 1, 2006, and gave him credit for time served.[8] Prosecutors said al-Arian would serve the balance of 19 months, and then be deported.

In his ruling, Moody harshly criticized al-Arian for doing nothing to stop suicide bombings perpetrated by the PIJ. "I find it interesting that you praise this country in public," he said, "the one you called Great Satan."[22] He continued:

You lifted not one finger. To the contrary, you laughed when you heard of the bombings ... You are a master manipulator. The evidence is clear in this case. You were a leader of the PIJ.[8][23]

Describing the PIJ suicide bombings, the judge said: "Anyone with even the slightest bit of human compassion would be sickened. Not you, you saw it as an opportunity to solicit more money to carry out more bombings."[22] Reacting to Al-Arian's contention that he had raised money for charities, Moody said: "Your only connection to widows and orphans was that you create them."[24]

Al-Arian was subpoenaed three times to testify in terrorism-related investigations before Virginia federal grand juries between 2006 and 2008. Each time, he refused to testify. He challenged the initial subpoena in four different federal courts, each of which held that he was in fact required to testify. He was imprisoned for 13 months for civil contempt for failing to testify in compliance with the first subpoena, later released on house arrest and eventually placed on daytime GPS monitoring. On June 27, 2014, all charges were dropped regarding his refusal to testify in grand jury proceedings. Per his 2006 plea agreement he was deported to Turkey on February 5, 2015.[25][26]

Rashad Hussain's comments on Sami Al-Arian became the subject of coverage in the media after Rashad Hussain was appointed United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in February 2010. The controversy concerned remarks made by Hussain in 2004, criticizing procedural issues in the U.S. terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian.[44] He "drew sharp criticism from conservatives for calling the prosecution of some terror suspects 'politically motivated,' a comment both Hussain and The White House denied."[45] The Council on Foreign Relations stated that, "The controversy led to a larger question of whether the United States should engage the Organization of Islamic Conference diplomatically."[46]

In 2004, while a student at Yale, Hussain attended a Muslim Students Association conference in Chicago and participated in a panel discussion on civil rights. Laila Al-Arian, a daughter of Sami Al-Arian, was also on the panel. During the discussion, Hussain made critical statements about the US terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian and other terrorism suspects, such as Chaplain James Yee and Brandon Mayfield.[20] According to recordings obtained by Politico in 2010, Hussain referred to the cases as examples of "politically motivated prosecutions." [20] He was careful to say that he was not offering an opinion on whether Al-Arian was guilty of the charges that he was a top leader of the U.S. branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization.[20][21] In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was sentenced to 57 months in prison (in other words, time served), and agreed to be deported following his prison term.[21][22]

Opinions differ on whether the recording shows that Hussain using the term "prosecutions," or "persecutions," and whether he said that the prosecutions were "used to squash political dissent," quotations from a 2004 story that Hussain denied making.[23] After the controversy over the statements, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs expressed continued White House confidence in Hussain, noting, "This is an individual that has written extensively on why some have used religious devices like the Qur'an to justify this [terrorism] and why that is absolutely wrong. And has garnered support from both the left and the right so we obviously have confidence."[47]

Originally, journalist Shannon Bream of Fox News reported that The White House attributed the "controversial remarks defending al-Arian" to Laila al-Arian.[44] Later, Jake Tapper, the Senior White House Correspondent for ABC News, reported that the "controversy was all the more confusing because the remarks were reported in the WRMEA in 2004, but the editor, Delinda Hanley, later removed the comments from the Web site, though she didn't recall why. In an email to Politico, Delinda C. Hanley, editor of the WRMEA, wrote that "Laila Al-Arian said the things attributed to Rashad Hussain, and an intern who attended the event and wrote up the article made an error, which was corrected on our Web site by deleting the two quotes in their entirety."

Later, in the April 2010 edition of WRMEA, Hanley wrote:

Four or five years after the above item was published, this writer received a phone call or a phone message, I honestly can't remember, on a date I can't recall—we get so many calls I'm lucky if I can remember a conversation a week later!—saying Hussain had been misquoted in Kandil's article. I don't remember if it was a misquote or misattribution and, since Kandil had left the magazine years ago, I did not contact her. But I do remember asking our webmaster to remove the quote in question—because this sequence of events was unusual. Normally we publish a correction or objection as a letter to the editor (see, respectively, p. 6 of this issue and the letter from Daniel Pipes on p. 3 of our October 2001 issue). Years after the fact, however, that seemed pointless. Now that oversight has come back to haunt me—and, more importantly, hurt Obama's envoy pick.[48]

In The Washington Post article titled Rashad Hussain, a Muslim and new U.S. envoy, is bridge between two worlds, Hussain is quoted as saying that his "extensive writings on this topic make it clear that I condemn terrorism unequivocally in all its forms. I'd be happy to put that against one sentence from 2004 that I believe was taken out of context."[49] In his May 11, 2010 interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Hussain was asked, "During your studies in law college in University of Yale you have criticize Sami Al-Aryan's trial and you have considered it represents a kind of politically motivated prosecution. Do you think that the courts in U.S. still suffer from identification of terrorism with the Muslims?" Hussain responded, "You know in that case that I said very clearly on the panel that I wasn't commenting on any of the specific allegations on him but I was making a comment about the process that was used in that case."[50]

• Links to 2006-2007 trial coverage from the St. Petersburg Times