TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — In a stinging defeat for prosecutors, a former Florida professor accused of helping lead a terrorist group that has carried out suicide bombings against Israel was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him yesterday, and the jury deadlocked on the rest.
The case against Sami Al-Arian, 47, had been seen as one of the biggest courtroom tests of the USA Patriot Act’s expanded search-and-surveillance powers.
After a five-month trial and 13 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted Mr. Al-Arian of eight of the 17 counts against him, including a key charge of conspiring to maim and kill people overseas. The jurors deadlocked on the others, including charges he aided terrorists.
Mr. Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer engineering professor, wept after the verdicts, and his attorney, Linda Moreno, hugged him. He will return to jail until prosecutors decide whether to retry him on the deadlocked charges.
Two co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were acquitted of all charges. A third, Hatem Naji Fariz, was found not guilty on 24 counts, and jurors deadlocked on the remaining eight.
“While we respect the jury’s verdict, we stand by the evidence we presented in court,” Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said.
Mr. Al-Arian’s wife, Nahla, celebrated outside the courthouse with family members and supporters.
“I’m ecstatic,” she said. “My husband is an outspoken Palestinian activist who loved this country, believed in the system and the system did not fail him.”
Miss Moreno said she hoped prosecutors would take into account the “overwhelming number of not-guilty verdicts” against the defendants in deciding whether to try Mr. Al-Arian again.
Federal prosecutors said Mr. Al-Arian and his co-defendants acted as the communications arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, spreading the word and raising money that went toward the suicide attacks that have killed hundreds.
Mr. Al-Arian was considered one of the most important terrorist figures to be brought to trial in the United States since the September 11 attacks. John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, hailed the indictment in 2003 as one of the first triumphs of the Patriot Act, which was enacted in the weeks after September 11.
The Patriot Act gave the government greatly expanded powers and broke down the wall between foreign intelligence investigations and domestic law enforcement.
In the Al-Arian case, officials said, it allowed separate FBI investigations — one of them a years-long secret foreign intelligence probe of the professor’s activities — to be combined and all the evidence used against him.
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