Posted on 07/02/2002 9:50:08 AM PDT by kattracks
TAMPA, Florida - A former US Justice Department attorney has sued a suspended professor linked to terrorists, saying the academic is the No. 2 official in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The lawsuit claims University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian is a member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network through the confederation of terror groups.
John Loftus, a retired St. Petersburg attorney who is suing as a taxpayer and as president of the Florida Holocaust Museum, did not provide evidence to back up his claims in the revised suit filed Monday in Hillsborough County Circuit Court.
Al-Arian's attorney, Robert McKee, called the lawsuit "kind of crazy, more foolishness."
"I think Mr. Loftus is abusing the legal process to gain notoriety ... to sell books or gain bookings on the lecture circuit," McKee said.
Last month, a judge dismissed Loftus' suit against the computer science professor, which claimed violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Perry Little found Loftus' claim that Al-Arian personally hurt him to be unfounded.
The revised lawsuit also alleges civil racketeering violations through a money-laundering network for terrorists.
Al-Arian has been under investigation since 1995 after a now-defunct think tank and charity he founded were linked to terrorists. He has never been charged with a crime.
A former think-tank director brought to the university by Al-Arian, Ramadan Abdulah Shallah, abruptly left in 1995 and resurfaced as the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Arian is on paid leave from the university over inflammatory statements on terrorism he made following Sept. 11. University President Judy Genshaft has indicated she will decide by next month whether to fire him.
1)........sued a suspended professor....... This guy hasn't been fire yet!!!!!!!! The University must have been thinking things will eventually quiet down so they could reinstate him!
2) Knowing liberal lawyers as we do..........any University doing background checks on prospective professors with certain ethnic backgrounds to hopefully protect themselves form this type of embarassment will be sued for "discrimination-in-hiring".
Your tax dollars at work.
Al-Arian...............VICTIM!
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