Federal Jury Rejects Terrorism Case Against Sami Al-Arian & Defendants for Alleged PIJ Activities

By Andrew Cochran

The most important terrorism-related trial in the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks has concluded with the jury effectively rejecting the government's entire case against Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants for their alleged activities on behalf of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Tthe jury acquitted Al-Arian of eight of the 17 counts against him, including the key charge of conspiring to maim and murder people overseas, and deadlocked on the other charges, including that he aided terrorists. Two co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were also acquitted of all charges; a third, Hatem Naji Fariz, was acquitted on 24 counts, and jurors deadlocked on the remaining eight charges against him. The government called over 80 witnesses during the 5-month-long trial, with evidence from "hundreds of pages of transcripts of wiretapped phone calls and faxes, records of money moving through accounts, documents seized from the defendants' homes and offices, and their own words on video" (quoting the Fox News story). The verdicts are an enormous defeat for the Justice Department and, I predict, will have a chilling effect on all planned terrorism prosecutions, especially in Florida. You can see the 118-page indictment here (Acrobat file). EDIT: Yes, the government can retry Al-Arian on the deadlocked counts, but realistically, that will be very tough.

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