The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - Prosecutors began introducing transcripts of wiretapped telephone conversations and faxes in the Sami Al-Arian trial on Wednesday.
The conversations and faxes were not read or displayed to the jury by the afternoon lunch break, as attorneys spent much of the morning arguing outside the presence of jurors over the admissibility of the exhibits.
The time spent in front of the jury was mostly taken up by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cherie Krigsman laying a foundation with government translator Tahsim Ali, trying to establish how he identified speakers in each conversation.
Outside the presence of the jury, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody granted a request by Kevin Beck, an attorney for defendant Hatim Naji Fariz that he strike a reference by Fariz in one conversation to the United States as ``the great Satan,'' a phrase Beck said was highly inflammatory.
THANKS Jelly Jam.
Judge James S. Moody
Appointed to the federal bench by Clinton in 2000