Merchant of Death
Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

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Sami al Arian Loses Appeal on Subpoena
The ongoing legal saga of Sami al Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who confessed to working with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, continues, this time with a victory for the government.

The NEFA Foundation has just posted the opinion of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that the government did NOT violate its plea agreement with Al Arian by issuing a subpoena for him to testify in a ongoing investigation into Muslim entities in in Northern Virginia, known as the Safa Network.

The Northern Virginia prosecutors want al Arian's testimony regarding the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT),one of the more prominent groups in the cluster of think tanks, businesses and charities registered to the same address in Herndon, Virginia.

The most interesting piece of public evidence pointing to what the government wants al Arian to testify about comes from where al Arian's World and Islamic Studies Enterprise (WISE) states that it's main U.S. funder is IIIT.

IIIT was raided by federal officials in March 2002 as part of Operation Greenquest. No charges have been filed against IIIT.

Interestingly, the State Department continues to sponsor the trips of IIIT leaders as part of their outreach program. Recently, the featured traveler was Abubaker Al Shingieti, a former Sudanese senior official whose jobs included Director of Political Affairs for the Sudanese President, when Sudan was both a center for terrorist activity and strongly under the influence of Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan Turabi.

In filings unsealed in 2006, al Arian's lawyers argued that their client's life would be in danger if he were forced to testify. An odd thing to claim, given that the appeal for quashing the subpoena was based in part on the assertion that al Arian knew nothing of any value for the Northern Virginia case.

So IIIT, who presents itself as a moderate academic institution, would kill him? The PIJ? For something he knows nothing about. More than passing strange.

Al Arian also argued that, in reaching his plea agreement to one count of supporting PIJ, he explicitly said that he would not testify in any other government cases.

That, ruled the appeals court, was not true. Al Arian was already held in contempt following his refusal to testify when the subpoena was first issued in October 2006. Now he is one big step closer to either testifying (unlikely) or spending considerably more time in jail than the initial 57-month sentence, followed by deportation, that he initially agreed to.





POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
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