A federal judge has lifted a civil contempt citation against a Palestinian Arab activist and former professor, Sami Al-Arian, after prosecutors essentially relented in their effort to keep him behind bars for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Islamic charities in Northern Virginia.

At a hearing yesterday morning, Judge Gerald Lee granted Al-Arian’s motion to be removed from contempt after spending nearly a year jailed for his defiance, according to Al-Arian’s legal team. However, the former professor will not be released immediately. He still has about four months left to serve on a 57-month criminal sentence stemming from his guilty plea to a charge of aiding an embargoed terrorist organization. After he completes that sentence, the Kuwaiti-born Al-Arian has agreed to be deported.

“We are obviously gladdened by the lifting of civil contempt status from our client, Dr. Sami Al-Arian,” his lead attorney, Jonathan Turley, said in a written statement. “The use of civil contempt to prolong his punishment has been a shocking abuse of the system by the Justice Department. Unable to convict Dr. Al-Arian before a jury, prosecutors have sought to mete out their own brand of justice through the grand jury system.”

While it is unlikely that Al-Arian could be placed back in civil contempt, it is still possible that prosecutors could bring a criminal contempt charge against him. They recently won an 11-year sentence in a similar case in Chicago involving a Hamas activist who refused to testify.
“We hope that this will be the end of this chapter in the Al-Arian case,” Mr. Turley said.

A spokesman for prosecutors in Virginia, James Rybicki, declined to comment on the developments.

An adviser to Al-Arian, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the grand jury that the ex-professor was defying was set to expire at the end of this month. In theory, prosecutors could call him before another panel and seek to have him held for civil contempt for up to six more months, until he reaches the legal limit of 18 months.

In 2005, Al-Arian stood trial in Tampa, Fla., on charges stemming from the government’s allegations that he was a top ranking representative in America for a terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After hearing about five months of testimony based on the fruits of a decade-long investigation, jurors acquitted Al-Arian on eight counts and deadlocked on nine others. Al-Arian later cut a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to a single count.

Al-Arian’s backers have argued that the decision to subpoena Al-Arian before the federal grand jury in Virginia was an effort by the government to get around the jury verdict and inflict punishment on the former University of South Florida computer engineering professor.

He spent two months on a hunger strike earlier this year to protest his treatment.

Al-Arian’s attorneys also contend that the deal with federal prosecutors in Florida relieved him of the duty to testify in other proceedings. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., rejected that position. However, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta, Ga., is expected to rule soon on another appeal from Al-Arian on that issue.