Al-Arian Offers Guilty Plea in Islamic Jihad Conspiracy

A former Florida college professor, Sami Al-Arian, has pleaded guilty to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad and agreed to serve more jail time before being deported, according to records made public today by a federal court in Tampa.

Prosecutors and Al-Arian agreed that he should be sentenced to between 46 and 57 months incarceration on one count of conspiracy to assist a group or individual on a federal government terrorist list. The judge overseeing the case, James Moody Jr., has agreed to impose a sentence in that range at a hearing set for May 1.

The former University of South Florida professor has been in custody since his arrest in February 2003. Federal law allows a credit for time served and a reduction for "good time." As a result, a sentence at the low end of the range, which prosecutors have agreed to recommend, could allow Al-Arian's release and deportation as early as June.

The plea agreement does not specify where the Kuwaiti-born professor will be sent after completing his sentence, but stipulates that he will not be deported to Canada or Mexico.

Al-Arian and three co-defendants were put on trial last year. A jury heard evidence for six months before acquitting the former computer engineering professor on eight counts. Jurors could not reach agreement on nine other counts. The government signaled it was preparing for a re-trial, but has agreed to drop the remaining charges once the plea is final.

As part of the plea deal, Al-Arian admitted to a variety of facts about his support for a terrorist group responsible for killing dozens of people in Israel, Gaza, and the West bank, chiefly through suicide bombings. In the agreement, Al-Arian conceded he "was associated with" and "performed services for" Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The admission goes somewhat beyond his attorney's concession during the trial that Al-Arian had "an affiliation" with the terrorist group. However, the agreement does not match the claims of prosecutors during the trial that he was a member and leader of the organization.

"We have a responsibility not to allow our nation to be a safe haven for those who provide assistance to the activity of terrorists," Attorney General Gonzales said in a written statement. "Sami Al-Arian has already spent significant time behind bars and will now lose the right to live in the country he calls home as a result of his confessed criminal conduct on behalf of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is the same conduct he steadfastly denied in public statements over the last decade."

Al-Arian is not an American citizen, but has permanent resident, or "green card," status here. In the plea deal, he conceded that he knew that several men who worked for his think tank, the World & Islam Studies Enterprise, were associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The professor long maintained that the men, Ramadan Shallah, Bashir Nafi, and Mazen Al-Najjar, had no ties to the group. One fact admitted to in the plea agreement is that Al-Arian lied to a St. Petersburg Times reporter about Mr. Shallah's affiliations after he abruptly left America and was named as secretary-general of Islamic Jihad. The lies to the reporter were also conceded at trial by Al-Arian's defense lawyer.

The plea agreement stipulates that Al-Arian "was aware that the PIJ achieved its objectives by, among other means, acts of violence." The professor, who initialed each page of the deal, also admitted to conversations using code phrases such as "10 shirts" and "the magazines" to refer to sums of money transferred to alleged participants in the conspiracy. Efforts Al-Arian made to defeat the deportation of his brother-in-law, Mr. Al-Najjar, are also described as part of services to the terrorist group.

The plea agreement was signed with prosecutors in February. Al-Arian formally offered his guilty plea to a federal magistrate, Thomas McCoun, at a secret court hearing on Friday. Magistrate McCoun recommended that Judge Moody accept the plea and he did so in an order issued today.

In a statement, the Justice Department said it objected to the exclusion of the public from Friday's plea hearing, but the objection was overruled.