The Nation

editorial | posted March 22, 2007 (April 9, 2007 issue)
Sami Al-Arian
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Dr. Sami Al-Arian could die in jail. The Palestinian computer
professor is withering away in a North Carolina medical prison, where
he was moved on day 24 of a hunger strike he began January 22 [see
Alexander Cockburn, “The Persecution of Sami Al-Arian,” March 19]. In
December 2005 a Florida jury declined to convict Al-Arian of any
alleged terrorist activities despite an exhaustive six-month trial
that cost the Justice Department an estimated $50 mil�lion. So the
government has punished him through other means. Last April Al-Arian
pled guilty to one charge (a deal he said he accepted only to end the
suffering of his family), and the government pledged to release him
and let him leave the country. But a judge recently jailed him on
contempt charges for refusing to testify in another case–precisely
the scenario his plea agreement was supposed to protect him from. The
Justice Department must keep its word to Al-Arian and release him. If
not, it is responsible for his fate.