CAIRO, June 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The lawyer of Sami Al-Arian, a fired South Florida professor and an advocate of the Palestinian cause, said the arrest and trial of his client is driven by pro-Israeli politics and post-9/11 pressures than by the evidence, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, June 7.

"The outstanding feature in this case is freedom of speech… Dr. Al-Arian's right to speak, your right to hear him and the ability of the powerful to silence him," William Moffitt told the court Monday, June 6.

He maintained that Al-Arian is being targeted because his views are largely unpopular in the United States.

As an influential Muslim leader, Al-Arian was active in politics, and met with US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Times said.

Saying the defendant had access to the White House and senior officials throughout the government, Moffitt questioned whether "anyone ever really thought that Dr. Al-Arian represented a violent threat to the United States."

He added that if the authorities really believed that Al-Arian posed a national threat "they had a duty and obligation to stop him" rather than allow him to remain free for more than a decade and to work as a "power broker" in political circles.

Al-Arian, 47, and three co-defendants, face a 53-count indictment that includes charges of racketeering, conspiracy and providing material support to "terrorists".

Five other men have been indicted but have not been arrested. The trial is expected to last for months.

Al-Arian, who was born in Kuwait, became a computer-engineering professor at South Florida in 1986 and worked on campus to promote a dialogue on Middle East affairs.

No Evidence

The assistant US attorney in Tampa said that prosecutors will present no evidence that Al-Arian ever helped plan any attacks or even knew about them in advance.

The government's long-running investigation produced no evidence linking him or his associates directly to the execution of any attack in Israel or the occupied territories.

However, he insisted that Al-Arian lived a double life for more than a decade as the American leader of Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad.

In a three-and-one-half-hour opening statement, prosecutors alleged the men used an Islamic academic think tank and a Palestinian charity founded by Al-Arian in Tampa as fundraising fronts for Islamic Jihad, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

In the mid-1990s Al-Arian co-founded the World and Islam Studies Enterprise -- at the University of South Florida.

He had been the object of a decade-long FBI probe into whether he channeled money through the on-campus think-tank to the Islamic Jihad.

Nahla described her husband as "a good man, a courageous man".

The US Marshals Service erected yellow barricades around the perimeter of the courthouse for the start of the trial.

This prompted concerns from defense lawyers, who said the heightened security measures could prejudice the anonymous jury against their clients, the Times said.

Supporters of Al-Arian held a rally in his defense over the lunch break, as his wife, Nahla, hailed him as "a good man, a courageous man" and predicted that he would be vindicated.

Atif Fareed of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said his organization was demonstrating to show "the American way is that these defendants are innocent until proven guilty."

The tenured computer engineering professor was placed on forced leave and banned from campus shortly after the 9/11 attacks and a subsequent TV appearance.

He has been in an ongoing battle with the university since December 2001 when the school's board of trustees voted to fire him because of what it called "activities ... outside the scope of his employment."

The university said he hurt the school's fund-raising efforts and resulted in threats being made against the school and fired him in 2003.

Al-Arian said his involvement with World and Islam Studies Enterprise and the Islamic Committee for Palestine was only "to support the just cause of the Palestinian people."

"I don't support suicide bombings," he has said. "I don't support the targeting of civilians of any nationality, background or religion. I am deeply against it."