Tampa Bay Coalition for justice and Peace

July 12, 2004

Democracy Now Interview with Dr. Al-Arian’s Attorney

On Friday, July 9, one of Dr. Al-Arian’s attorneys, Linda Moreno was
featured on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” a radio news program
broadcast on over 200 stations across the country. As a result of the
program, a number of concerned citizens visited the website about Dr.
Al-Arian’s case (www.freesamialarian.com), subscribed to the email
list, and asked what they could do to help bring justice to Dr. Al-
Arian.

Some listeners also generously donated through the website.
(http://www.freesamialarian.com/help.htm). However, the legal bills
are ever-increasing, so we encourage supporters to continue to
contribute. A fair trial can only be possible through assembling a
capable and talented legal team, and of course this is only possible
through your generous donations.

**Below is the transcript of Ms. Moreno’s interview with Amy Goodman:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/09/144245#transcript

Friday, July 9th, 2004
The Case of Sami al-Arian

We take a look at the case of Palestinian Professor Sami al-Arian,
who has been imprisoned for over a year and is awaiting trial on
charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. We speak
with his attorney Linda Moreno.

At 5:30 am on a February morning in 2003, officers from the FBI and
Joint Terrorism task Force raided the south Florida home of Professor
Sami al-Arian. The officers grabbed him and took him from the house
as his wife and 3 children watched in horror.

—

Sami Al-Arian was a tenured professor of computer science at the
University of South Florida. In his personal life, he was known as an
outspoken Palestinian activist and frequently spoke on college
campuses. He had had previous encounters with the FBI in the mid-
1990s, when the office of a group he established was raided by
federal agents and al-Arian was under investigation on suspicion of
aiding terror groups. Though Al-Arian was investigated for two years,
he was never detained or charged with a crime and continued to work
for the school…that is, until he got a call from the FOX News
Channel.

In late September 2001, al-Arian was invited to be a guest on The
O’Reilly Factor. Al-Arian thought he was going to be discussing Arab-
American reactions to the attacks. Instead, host Bill O’Reilly went
on a tirade against him, basically accusing al-Arian of supporting
terrorism and terrorist groups. O’Reilly dug up comments al-Arian had
made 15 years earlier and suggested that he should be followed
everywhere he went. All of this on live international television and
just weeks after the 9-eleven attacks. Here is an excerpt of that
program on September 28, 2001. O’Reilly begins by referring to al-
Arian’s connections to former colleague Ramadun Abdullah Shallah who
later resurfaced as head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

(Tape)
The O’Reilly Factor, September 28, 2001.
Beginning the next day, the University of South Florida, where al-
Arian worked was barraged by hundreds of threatening letters and
emails. Thirty-six hours after the interview, the university put Al-
Arian on paid leave. In October of 2002, a few months before his
house was raided and he was put in prison, I had a chance to
interview Sami al-Arian at an antiwar demonstration in New York,
commemorating the one year anniversary of the US invasion of
Afghanistan.

(Tape)
Interview with Sami al-Arian October 6, 2002.

Sami al-Arian has now been in jail for more than a year and his trial
is set to begin in January 2005.

Linda Moreno, lawyer for Sami al-Arian, who is imprisoned and
awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit
murder.

AMY GOODMAN: Here is an excerpt of that program on September 28,
2001. O’Reilly begins by referring to Al-Arian’s connections to
former colleague Ramadun Abdullah Shallah who later resurfaced as
head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

BILL O’REILLY: �taking credit for all kinds of terrorist
activity and
you know him pretty well. Got an explanation here?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, I mean, when he came here he came as a
volunteer, he was working in an intellectual think tank and he talked
with the University and then he left. He said that his father was
sick and he was going back to the occupied territories and then six
months later, we were shocked like everyone else in the world in
which he became the leader of the jihad.

BILL O’REILLY: You were shocked? You couldn’t understand it. He
never
told you that his � that his views, his political views were that
extreme. You were just taken by surprise?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Everyone was. Everyone who knew him here at the
University of South Florida, everyone who knew him personally was
extremely surprised.

BILL O’REILLY: With all due respect, I appreciate you coming on
the
program, but if I was the C.I.A., I’d follow you wherever you went.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor,”
challenging Sami Al-Arian. Beginning the next day, the University of
South Florida, where al-Arian worked was barraged by hundreds of
threatening letters and emails. Thirty-six hours after the interview,
the University put Al-Arian on paid leave. In October, 2002, a few
months before his house was raided, he was put in prison. I had a
chance to interview Sami al-Arian at an antiwar protest in New York,
commemorating the one year anniversary of the US invasion of
Afghanistan.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Starting a war in Iraq, whenever you have war and
oppression of a state, rest assured you’re going to have a repression
and injustice at home. And we must really fight very hard to restore
our civil liberties, especially with the Patriot Act. It is an act
that really takes away much of what people take for granted, not just
for immigrants, but it will affect every single person, and I believe
there is a sunset provision in 2005, What we need to do is educate
the people about the effects of this very dangerous act and mobilize
and organize so that when it comes to a vote again in 2005, that will
be the end of it.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sami al-Arian. He has now been in jail for more
than a year and his trial is set to begin in January 2005. We’re
joined in our Tampa studio where Democracy Now! Is broadcasting from
today, by Linda Moreno. She is a lawyer for Sami Al-Arian… Welcome
to Democracy Now!

LINDA MORENO: Nice to be with you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Linda Moreno, what is happening to Sami Al-Arian today?

LINDA MORENO: Well as we sit here today, 17 months after his arrest,
he still resides in an 8 by 12 cell. They have Dr. Al-Arian in the
maximum security wing of the Federal prison in Coleman Florida. They
have a special name for this wing, it’s called the “Shoe
Unit” or
the “Special Housing Unit.” This is a place where the worst
of the
worst prisoners are kept. These are convicted felons, convicted of
murder and terrorism, racketeering, drug trafficking, and what have
you. We must remember that Dr. Al-Arian is a pre-trial detainee and
he and his co-defendant are the only pre-trial detainees in the
entire prison complex. The conditions of confinement are disgraceful.
Amnesty international has written the Bureau of Prisons, requesting
information and criticizing the gratuitously punitive way they’re
keeping Dr. Al-Arian. Dr. Al-Arian is denied the same privileges that
the convicted felons enjoy most frequently. He is not allowed contact
or visits with his family at all, unless there is a motion made
before the court. He is not allowed to purchase the same foods items
from the commissary that the convicted felons are allowed. He is not
allowed tea or cheese or tuna. They don’t give him adequate pencils
and stationary for him to work on his case. So the conditions of
confinement have not been ameliorated. To give you a vivid example of
that, when he comes in to meet with his lawyers, they refuse to
manacle him in front of his body. They always manacle him behind his
body and they refuse to assist him in carrying him in his paperwork.
So, they lead him into the conference room bent over, manacled behind
his body with his documents on his back like a beast of burden. This
is the treatment that the pretrial detainee, Dr. Al-Arian, is
receiving. So, the conditions of confinement are gruesome and we are
very concerned about that.

AMY GOODMAN: What can you do to change the conditions?

LINDA MORENO: Well, we have gone to the courts and requested an
amelioration of those conditions. We haven’t gotten any relief
yet.
It is an open issue. One of the things that we’ve been told by the
prison officials is that they’re not set up to house pretrial
detainees, and that the reasons these conditions are imposed on Dr.
Al-Arian are for his own safety. However, it’s ironic that the other
prisoners in the complex really are quite protective of Dr. Al-Arian.
So, the question is: Who is Dr. Al-Arian being protected from? Is it
from the other prisoners, or from the prison itself?

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the actual charges?

LINDA MORENO: Well, it � he is charged in 27 of the 50 counts in
the
indictment. We do have a trial date of January 2005, and we are
preparing for trial. This is a case that involves about a 13-year
surveillance on Dr. Al-Arian’s home, his offices at the University of
South Florida. These are wiretaps that were on all members of his
family and so on. So, we’re in the middle of discovery on this case
and we’re fighting very hard.

AMY GOODMAN: Hmm. Well, Linda Moreno, I want to thank you for being
with us. If people want to follow the case, is there a website they
can go to?

LINDA MORENO: I think that the family has a website called
http://www.freesamialarian.com.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for joining us, and all
contacts you can get on our website at democracynow.org.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here
for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359.