Government filing says Al-Arian was briefly FBI informant
by Vickie Chachere -- Associated Press
Monday, April 5, 2004----
TAMPA, Fla. - Federal prosecutors say a former professor accused of raising money for a Palestinian terrorist group was briefly an FBI informant, according to newly filed court documents.
The disclosure in the case of Sami Al-Arian comes in the government's response to defense attorneys attempts to gain access to more evidence in the federal racketeering case against the former University of South Florida professor and three other men.
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Al-Arian faces a 50-count racketeering indictment which accuses him of using a Palestinian charity and an academic think tank as a front for raising money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
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Al-Arian's attorneys had asked the government to detail the dates, times, places and circumstances that Al-Arian was used as a source and any evaluations of the information he provided. The government responded it has no "duty to produce information the defendant already knows."
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Al-Arian was a prominent activist on behalf of Palestinian causes for more than a decade, including several years in which the investigation of him and his brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar was public knowledge.
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Al-Arian was arrested last year and faces a January 2005 trial.
In 1991, Al-Arian was among a group of Arabs living in the United States who were questioned by FBI agents about potential terrorist activities as the United States moved toward war with Iraq, The Tampa Tribune reported at the time.
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