AL-ARIAN, PLEA BARGAIN REJECTED, REMAINS IN JAIL

Academe, Jul/Aug 2006 by Kurland, Jordan E

This past winter, after former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian was acquitted by a federal jury of eight major criminal charges against him regarding his 1990s activity in behalf of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, he was kept in jail while the government decided whether to retry him on remaining charges on which the jury had not reached a verdict. Meanwhile, the AAUP sought and received confirmation from the university administration that its dismissal of Al-Arian upon his indictment in 2003 was not a final action, and that he could contest the dismissal under university procedures upon becoming tree to do so (see "AAUP Questions University on Status of Al-Arian" on pages 14-15 of the March-April issue).

In April, however, faced with the likelihood of more years of imprisonment with deportation proceedings awaiting him upon his eventual release from custody, Al-Arian entered into a plea bargain with the government prosecutors. He pled guilty to one aspect of a lesser charge, the minimum sentence for which was only a few weeks longer than the time he had already served. He agreed that, after serving this time and being reunited with his family, he would be deported.

The federal judge responsible for sentencing Al-Arian, however, took a sharply different position from that to which the parties to the case had agreed. Calling Al-Arian a "master manipulator" who in supporting the Palestinian cause did nothing to oppose violent actions, the judge imposed not the minimum but the maximum sentence, which involves another year and a half in jail. Al-Arian has now been moved to solitary confinement hundreds of miles from his home in a special unit of a federal facility designed for convicted inmates who violate prison rides. During his first week he was without a watch or a clock, was allowed out of his cell only twice, and was unable to communicate with his attorneys. He was permitted to call his family for the first time only when the week was over.

Former AAUP president and Committee A chair William Van Alstyne, who chaired the AAUP investigating committee in the Al-Arian case, said with respect to the "unexpected and remarkably harsh" sentence imposed by the judge that he strongly concurs in fellow law professor David Cole's quoted characterization of it: "The judge's words-that Al-Arian supported violence-contradict the very basis of the jury's acquittal and the plea agreement, and raise questions about fundamental fairness."-J.E.K.