In a stinging defeat for US 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. The jury deadlocked on the rest.
The case against Sami Al-Arian, 47, had been seen as one of the biggest courtroom tests yet of the Patriot Act's expanded search-and-surveillance powers.
After a five-month trial and 13 days of deliberations, the jury acquitted Al-Arian on Tuesday of eight of the 17 counts against him, including a key charge of conspiring to maim and murder people overseas. The jurors deadlocked on the others, including charges he aided terrorists.
PHOTO: AP
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 25 counts, and jurors deadlocked on the remaining eight.
"While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the evidence we presented in court," Department of Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said.
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."
Al-Arian was considered one of the most important terrorist figures to be brought to trial in the US since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. His indictment in 2003 was hailed by then-attorney general John Ashcroft as one of the first triumphs of the Patriot Act, which was enacted in the weeks after Sept. 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.
A male juror, whose name was being kept secret by the court, said he did not see the case as a First Amendment issue, as defense attorneys had claimed, explaining that the decision came down to lack of proof.
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