Palestinian professor to appeal jail term in U.S. terror finance case

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"Palestinian former professor Sami Al-Arian will appeal a judge's decision to sentence him to additional prison time for his role in providing support to a terrorist group, federal court records show.

Attorney C. Peter Erlinder filed the notice to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

A federal jury last year acquitted Al-Arian of eight counts of aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad while deadlocking on nine other counts. Instead of facing a second trial on the remaining counts, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one count of providing services to members of the PIJ, labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

U.S. District Judge James Moody sentenced him on May 1 to four years and nine months in prison, the most allowed under the terms of a plea agreement that also calls for his deportation.

The sentence means Al-Arian, 48, who has already spent more than three years in custody, must serve about a year and a half more before he is deported."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/715082.html

Ignores evidence, Ignores what the majority of the jury thought, Ignores the plead bargain...

Yep you rightwing asshole.

It's fitting, but sad, that an American judge should adopt the slogan of one side in this case. Justice in Tampa is neither balanced or blind.


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"You have to wonder about a few things in the May 1 sentencing of Sami Al-Arian.

For example, Alberto Gonzalez--the "torture-is-OK" and "no-law-binds-the-president" U.S. attorney general"--flew into the Tampa Bay area five days before the courtroom spectacle in which federal District Judge James Moody threw the book at Al-Arian, albeit a tattered tome that bore no resemblance to truth, justice or the U.S. Constitution.

Or, consider that Tampa's U.S. Attorney, Paul Perez, showed up--for the first time during the Al-Arian case--at the prosecution table on sentencing day. Courthouse gossips, including some of Perez's own staff, have told me he had wanted to keep a little distance during the trial in case his subalterns faltered. Falter they did. The prosecution team stumbled through awful lawyering and a series of strategic pratfalls. After a decade of investigations, costing U.S. taxpayers as much as $50 million, the feds didn't prove a single crime was committed by Al-Arian and three other Palestinians. Meanwhile, real terrorists with blood on the minds, such as Mohammed Atta, went undetected in Florida.

So, why did Perez show up at the drama's final scene? Why was he so eager to race to a spot in front of the TV cameras and make inflammatory claims about things his minions couldn't prove to a jury?

It's almost as if Perez KNEW Moody was going to surprise everyone and ignore the negotiated recommendations from both prosecution and defense attorneys that Al-Arian be given the light side of federal sentencing guidelines of 46 to 57 months in jail. With time served, Al-Arian could have anticipated almost immediate release and deportation. Now, with Moody's sentencing, he'll languish through as much as another 18 months in jail."

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I did not know Alberto Gonzalez was in town before sentencing.