>From the St. Pete Times: USF professor Al-Arian arrested at his home
FBI officials also take 3 in Chicago into custody under sealed indictment. By GRAHAM BRINK, Times staff writer Published Online, Feb. 21, 2003 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TAMPA -- Controversial University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian was arrested at his Temple Terrace home and taken into federal custody early this morning. Al-Arian was handcuffed as agents led him through the front door of the FBI building in downtown Tampa."It's all about politics," he said to reporters. "It's all about politics." Also arrested were Sameeh Hammoudeh, 42, Hatim Naji Fariz of Spring Hill, 30, and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, 41, who was arrested in Chicago, according to FBI officials. The sealed indictment is expected to charge Al-Arian with racketeering and providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy, among other things. [Times photo: Ken Helle] Sami Al-Arian is walked in cuffs through Robert L. Timberlake, Jr. Federal Building in Tampa this morning. Also expected to be named in the indictment are the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who once headed up a think tank at USF with which Al-Arian was involved. Abdel Aziz-Odeh, a former spiritual leader of the PIJ, is also expected to be named in the indictment. Aziz-Odeh and Shallah are not believed to be in the United States. Al-Arian is scheduled to appear in federal court in Tampa later today. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has called a press conference in Washington D.C. for the early afternoon. Al-Arian, a tenured computer engineering professor, is no stranger to federal scrutiny. The Kuwaiti-born professor was the focus of a federal investigation in the mid 1990s, when agents suspected that an Islamic think tank he operated at USF was a front for Middle Eastern terrorists. The accusation arose after Shallah, a former head of the think tank, left Tampa in 1995 and soon resurfaced as the head of PIJ, a terrorist organization. Al-Arian also was accused of raising money for Palestinian groups with ties to terrorism. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he made fiery speeches that denounced Israel, including one in which he said: "Victory to Islam. Death to Israel." Al-Arian, who applied for U.S. citizenship several years ago, was never charged with a crime. But the FBI never announced that its investigation was closed. Al-Arian's recent problems began last fall after his alleged ties to terrorists were aired on national television. That created a firestorm for USF, which said it received hate mail and several death threats. Al-Arian was immediately suspended with pay and banned from campus. In December, after a 12-1 vote for dismissal by USF's board of trustees, Genshaft notified Al-Arian that she intended to fire him. Last February, in an unusual move, federal authorities announced that Al-Arian remained under investigation but would not elaborate. Genshaft said today that she would wait to learn more about the arrest before making any decisions. Al-Arian has repeatedly denied any connection to terrorist activities or providing any funds to carry out terrorist plots. His brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, also taught at the university. He spent more than 3 1/2 years in jail on secret evidence linking him to terrorists. He was released in 2000 but arrested again in November 2001 and deported last August.
