February 20, 2003

Florida Professor Charged With Operating Global Terror Organization

A Florida professor and seven other men were charged Thursday with operating a global terrorist organization that the federal government says is responsible for the deaths of 100 people in and around Israel.

University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian is the North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in announcing the federal indictment.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a U.S. government-designated foreign terrorist organization committed to homicide bombings and violent jihad activities, Ashcroft said at an afternoon press conference.

"Palestinian Islamic Jihad is one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world," he said.
[...]Al-Arian and seven other men are charged in a 50-count indictment with operating a criminal racketeering enterprise since 1984 that supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They are also charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people abroad; conspiracy to provide material support to the group; extortion; perjury; mail and wire fraud; obstruction of justice; and attempt to procure citizenship or naturalization unlawfully.
[...]The group's purpose is to destroy Israel and end all U.S. and Western influence in the region, prosecutors say. The indictment says the group rejected peaceful solutions to the Palestinian quest for a homeland in the Middle East and with embracing "the Jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only choice for liberation."

The group's manifesto calls the United States "the Great Satan America."
[...]Al-Arian and his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, founded the World and Islam Studies Enterprises, a now-defunct Islamic think tank at USF that was raided by the FBI in 1995. Al-Arian also founded the Islamic Concern Project Inc. in 1988.

Al-Najjar spent more than 3 1/2 years in jail on secret evidence linking him to terrorists. He was released in 2000 but arrested again in November 2001 and deported last August.

If I were Queen, this guy would already be dead!
I'd give him a fair trial and then have him shot.
Ha-ha!
Lucky for him we have the plodding FBI and our system of rule of law which requires bothersome stuff like "proof," warrants and trial by jury.
Darnit!
If he's as guilty as terror expert Steven Emerson said in his book American Jihad, then even with our judicial safeguards, he should still be convicted and then either deported or put away for a long, long time.
Good work, FBI and "jack-booted Nazi" John Ashcroft's Department of Justice!