Updating Sami Al-Arian - His Ordeal Continues - by Stephen Lendman
For regular readers of this site, Al-Arian needs no introduction. For others, here's a brief snapshot of his case before updating his current status:
-- Al-Arian is a Kuwaiti-born son of Palestinian refugees who fled during the 1947-49 Nakba catastrophe;
-- he came to America in 1975 and was denied citizenship because of his faith and ethnicity; ever since, he's been an award-winning scholar, community leader and civil activist;
-- he was a distinguished University of South Florida (USF) computer science professor until being unjustly fired for his human rights efforts for Arabs and Muslims;
-- now he's one of hundreds of political prisoners doing hard time in US prisons and treated no differently than others like him at Guantanamo;
-- the system is a gulag (at home and offshore) and shame of the nation (click here
-- Al-Arian's case is special; the FBI hounded him for 11 years; he was unjustly indicted, arrested, tried, yet exonerated in court - acquitted on eight false terrorism charges with the jury deadlocked on nine others 10 - 2 in his favor; DOJ routinely dismisses these cases; retrying them rarely happens; but it wasn't the plan for Al-Arian;
-- DOJ continued to pursue him, struck a plea bargain, then broke it; in violation of its terms, it subpoenaed him three times before grand juries;
-- the scheme is to entrap him under perjury and obstruction charges; on advice of counsel, Al-Arian won't testify; his plea agreement exempts him;
-- the first two times he was held in contempt and his sentence extended; it may be extended a third time; under his agreement, he was to be released for time served and voluntarily deported on May 1, 2006; DOJ had other plans; it likely still does;
-- Al-Arian is a "war on terrorism" trophy prisoner; he was targeted for his faith, ethnicity and political activism;
-- he's been in prison since February 20, 2003; held in over a dozen maximum and other federal prison facilities, treated punitively in all of them, held in solitary confinement for 37 months, and until April 14, 2008 (most recently) was in special housing unit (SHU) isolation at the Jessup, Maryland's Howard County Detention Center.
Here's how events unfolded this month. On April 11, Al-Arian was taken to the Alexandria, VA federal courthouse, held in a holding cell for three hours, then moved to the Alexandria Detention Center. He remained there until immigration authorities (ICE) took him to Fairfax, VA for processing.
At 10PM, he was taken to the Jessup, MD Howard County Detention Center and placed in the general population, according to standard procedure.
At 1AM April 12, he was transferred to the SHU unit, held in isolation under 23-hour lockdown, forced to endure frigid temperatures, and blasted with continuous deafening sounds for maximum punitive effect.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
I had been watching this case and mentioning it in many of writings from the start. It does look that they just train themselves to kill an innocent person. I am not even mentioning the ordeal of thee family. So.. the question is simple- let the lawyer ask the best juror in the country, Vincent Bugliosi to review the case and then publish the results of the review through the world.
by
Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 227 diaries, 3219 comments)
on Friday, April 18, 2008 at 8:19:47 AM
It's clear they just want Sami A-Arian to die. He has too much to say about how this war criminal administration treats human beings. They are running out the clock until he either dies or Bush is out of office. Who is doing the upcoming interview, where can we watch it?
by
JustHisWordsdotcom (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 14 comments)
on Friday, April 18, 2008 at 10:53:35 AM
