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What I saw at the deportation hearing of another convicted anti-American, anti-Semitic, Palestinian terrorist Fawaz Abu Damra. Today, I attended a pre-trial hearing in the deportation proceedings against convicted felon Palestinian Fawaz Abu Damra (a/k/a Fawwaz Damra, a/k/a Fawaz Damrah and multiple other spellings he deliberately used for multiple identities and deliberate confusion), the imam of the Cleveland mosque, and a conspirator with Islamic Jihad chieftain Sami al-Arian. Damra was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing--another piece of evidence showing that al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad are working together. He headed Brooklyn's Al-Farooq Mosque where the...

TAMPA - Juror 211 is one of the reasons that the fate of Sami Al-Arian remains unsettled after a trial lasting half a year. As one of two holdouts favoring conviction for the former University of South Florida professor, she said she's glad federal prosecutors may get a second chance to bring terror-support charges against Al-Arian. "After six months, I didn't like it left hanging like this," she said in an interview last week. "I wanted it left with a definite result." Deliberations lasted 13 days and were tense at times, said juror 211, known as "Char" to her friends....

Where Al-Arian's Prosecutors Failed By JEFF LIPKES Published: Dec 19, 2005 Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus after one of the most famous trials in history. On the basis of perjury and forged documents, the French artillery captain had been convicted of spying for Germany and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. His real crime was to have been Jewish at a time when anti-Semitism was on the upsurge in France. Is there a parallel with the Sami Al-Arian case? Was the former University of South Florida engineering professor persecuted because he...

dolphin says: But... but... he was only sponsoring the Islamic Jihad!.. A truly shocking, unbelievable piece that will long be revered as an epitome of whitewashing in the history of journalism. Al-Reuters, without a hint of shame, attempts to portray the apparent sponsor of terrorism, who barely escaped conviction, as a simple peaceful man who is only trying to help his fellow Muslims in the Palestinian Authority.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a country seared by the September 11 attacks, Muslim American charities and donors say they live in constant fear of frozen funds, indictments and even closure, regardless of whether they...

American Muslim organizations rally behind message of hate. When former college professor—and alleged terrorist—Sami al-Arian was unexpectedly acquitted Tuesday on eight counts and received a hung jury on the other nine, many Muslims could barely contain their glee. “People are just jubilant,” Ahmed Bedier, the Tampa chapter director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the New York Times. The not guilty verdicts were a “wonderful and a tremendous victory,” according to a statement released by Muslim-American Society (MAS) President Mahdi Bray. While in many cases it might be reasonable to forgive a defendant acquitted by a jury of...

Sami's Guardian Angel By Paul Sperry FrontPageMagazine.com | December 9, 2005 "I didn't see the evidence," explained one male juror who this week voted to acquit former Florida professor Sami al-Arian on charges he conspired to help Palestinian terrorists kill Israelis and Americans. Don't blame federal prosecutors for that. They did the best they could with the reams of circumstantial evidence they had, which was powerful enough by itself to sway even al-Arian's defense team to admit he had at least "some affiliation" with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and may have cheered news of the terror group's attacks. But prosecutors could...

My friend, Michael Eisenstadt, dedicated his life, among other things, to seeing terrorist leader Sami Al-Arian face justice. In September, Mike, spokesman for Tampa's Jewish community, died of lung cancer. While his passing is a source of great sadness, I'm glad Mike didn't get to see Al-Arian's acquittal, Tuesday. It was a sad day in America, but not one that was unexpected. At least by me. Everyone predicted that the jury would throw the book at the man who was a founder of terrorist group Islamic Jihad, and ran its worldwide headquarters from his University of South Florida offices. But...

"I didn't see the evidence," explained one male juror who this week voted to acquit former Florida professor Sami al-Arian on charges he conspired to help Palestinian terrorists kill Israelis and Americans. Don't blame federal prosecutors for that. They did the best they could with the reams of circumstantial evidence they had, which was powerful enough by itself to sway even al-Arian's defense team to admit he had at least "some affiliation" with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and may have cheered news of the terror group's attacks. But prosecutors could have had an open-and-shut case if it weren't for a reluctant...

Why Al-Arian Walked By Debbie SchlusselFrontPageMagazine.com | December 9, 2005My friend, Michael Eisenstadt, dedicated his life, among other things, to seeing terrorist leader Sami Al-Arian face justice. In September, Mike, spokesman for Tampa's Jewish community, died of lung cancer. While his passing is a source of great sadness, I'm glad Mike didn't get to see Al-Arian's acquittal, Tuesday.It was a sad day in America, but not one that was unexpected. At least by me. Everyone predicted that the jury would throw the book at the man who was a founder of terrorist group Islamic Jihad, and ran its worldwide...

Former college professor Sami Al-Arian may have won in court this week, but his future is still murky as he awaits the U.S. government's next move, which could include deportation. Al-Arian was acquitted Tuesday of eight of the 17 federal terrorism-conspiracy charges against him, with the jury deadlocking on the rest. The verdicts were a stunning defeat for federal authorities who had been assembling the complex case against him for a decade. Al-Arian, 47, remains in jail, where he's been since his February 2003 indictment, while the federal government decides whether to retry him on the deadlocked charges, which include...

There it is. Turn on the news it should be on right about now. His co-conspirators too.

TAMPA - A former college professor was found not guilty Tuesday of helping to lead a terrorist group that allegedly established a cell in Florida, ending a lengthy trial that balanced allegations of terrorist-related acts against assertions of abused constitutional rights. After 13 days of deliberation, a federal jury acquitted Sami Al-Arian, once a computer sciences professor at the University of South Florida, of eight of the 17 charges against him -- including a key charge that he served as a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and conspired to murder and maim people in Israel and elsewhere. The 12-member jury...

Al-Arian Lied to the Press and Immigration Authorities, Lawyer Concedes By JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun November 10, 2005 TAMPA, Fla. - A defense attorney for a former college professor on trial for his alleged leadership role in a terrorist group conceded in court yesterday that his client lied to the press and immigration authorities in what the lawyer described as an effort to keep a Palestinian Arab think tank afloat. The former computer science professor, Sami Al-Arian, and three co-defendants are on trial for allegedly acting as the American wing of a terrorist group responsible for...

TAMPA, Fla. - A former professor was described by his attorneys Tuesday as a crusader for the Palestinian cause whose inflammatory words have been twisted by federal prosecutors intent on proving he is a terrorist. In shared closing arguments, attorneys Linda Moreno and William Moffitt said Sami Al-Arian did nothing but speak, write and publish strong words critical of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and advocate a better life for its people. "It has been a prosecution of his ideas and his beliefs, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is un-American," Moreno told the jury. Al-Arian, 47, and three...

TAMPA, Fla. - A fired college professor acted as a "crime boss" for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a murderous gang that operated like the Mafia, a federal prosecutor told a jury Monday. Although Sami Al-Arian and three co-defendants are not charged with killing anyone, they conspired to bring about attacks and are just as guilty under the law as the suicide bombers who carried them out, prosecutor Cherie Krigsman said in closing arguments. "The men of the PIJ you got to know in this case, they didn't strap bombs to their body," she said. "They leave that to somebody else." Al-Arian,...

TAMPA, Fla. - An attorney defending a fired college professor against federal charges of aiding Palestinian terrorists rested his case Thursday without calling a single witness to refute nearly five months of prosecution testimony. Defense attorney William Moffitt called the prosecution an "all-out assault on the First Amendment" and the right to free speech, and then rested his case for Sami Al-Arian. Attorneys for three co-defendants began presenting their cases, which could take weeks more. Because the trial was continuing, neither side was immediately available for comment. Al-Arian, 47, who was fired from the University of South Florida, and his...

Al-Arian again confronted by survivors of suicide attacks First Beit Lid, and now the Megiddo junction: from the PIJ's perspective, Al-Arian had a lot to be "chipper" about. "Israelis in Florida Jihad Trial," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist: Five Israelis who witnessed a Palestinian suicide attack three years ago, were called to the stand Tuesday to testify in the trial of professor Sami Al-Arian who is accused of heading the Palestinian Islamic Jihad branch in the US and of raising money used to finance terror attack against Israelis. The Israelis that testified in court in...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A fired university professor accused of supporting terrorists denied ties to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a filmed 1994 interview, which was played at his trial Wednesday. During the interview for a PBS documentary on Middle East terror groups operating in the United States, Sami Al-Arian was asked if he had ties to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. "There was never an affiliation," he replied. Prosecutors have presented intercepted phone calls and letters and played videotaped speeches that they say show Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor, was the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's top official in...

Al-Arian jury puts trial in doubt A few days ago I wrote in a column that Al-Arian's supporters would not be laughing for long. However, this is a group that knows well how to play the system, and they will play this for all it's worth and then some. Al-Arian walk watch, from the St. Petersburg Times, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist: TAMPA - Was there jury misconduct? That is the question the federal judge in the trial of Sami Al-Arian and three other defendants must answer in the next few days. Then he must decide whether to dismiss...

In a trial with more important national security implications than any since the Rosenbergs’, Sami Al-Arian now begins his third month in the dock. The defense claims that Al-Arian is a peaceful Muslim with unpopular political views. But according to prosecutors, while Al-Arian was a professor at the University of South Florida, and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times was affectionately characterizing him as a “rumpled academic with a salt-and-pepper beard,” he was actually the head of the American wing of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), held a key position in the group’s worldwide leadership, and even...