Posted on 12/08/2005 11:49:12 AM PST by West Coast Conservative
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 three key counts accusing him of conspiracy to support the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Officials say there is no timetable for a decision.
If the government decides to abandon the remaining charges, it's doubtful Al-Arian will be permitted to return to his previous life in Tampa. He had been a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, but was fired after his indictment.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding him on an immigration detainer and likely will try to deport him if he's released from jail. The agency can deport any foreign national it deems a terrorism risk and is held to a lower burden of proof than the criminal courts.
Al-Arian was born in Kuwait to Palestinian refugee parents and holds permanent residency status in the United States, where he has lived for three decades. He was raised mostly in Egypt. If he is deported it's not clear where he would be sent.
Calls to Al-Arian's attorneys were not immediately returned Thursday.
A vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, Al-Arian and three co-defendants were charged with running a North American cell of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group that has killed hundreds in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Jurors declined to convict any of the four defendants; some said prosecutors simply failed to connect the defendants directly to any violent acts.
Fine. Deport him to Egypt. I'm sure he'd enjoy being incarcerated there.
Re-try him. Then deport him later.
Get him and his cohorts on a plane today. Then cap the trip off with a helicopter drop in the desert of his choice. Put it on pay per view and recoup all the costs.
Too bad he did not sell some shares of stock at the wrong time. I bet they would have gotten him then.
Or tell conflicting stories to Pat Fitzgerald.
Good idea.
Hold that flight. I know just the Air Marshall for it.
Why don't they tie him to a drone and drop him in the Atlantic?
Fire him to egypt - out of a cannon.
OR to Mars! And send that dingbat Sheila Jackson Lee with him, so she can see where the astronauts landed!
Could we send a few hundred others with him? Starting with Ward "I-am-only-an-Indian-in-my-own-mind" Churchill?
Send him to Israel - bound and gagged, on the doorstep of Shin Bet headquarters.
I see Saddam Hussein's lawyers asking the terror victims if they actually saw Saddam Hussein when they were tortured.
KICK THIS DIRTBAG OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.
Retry him on each of the 9 counts that were deadlocked, but try him one charge at a time. After it has gone on for a few years, win or lose, throw the raghead out of the country anyway.
The jury must have been DNC ballot-testers from Broward County.
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