[sanuri11]

The Torture of Sami Al Arian


JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, attorney on appeal for Dr. Sami Al Arian, says that the treatment accorded the acquitted but still detained academic Palestinian activist from Tampa - now on hunger strike and in danger of irreversible renal failure at a federal prison hospital - is abuse of power amounting to torture taking place in the United States itself under the aegis of the Bush Administration and its "war on terror"...

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The storm of criticism that followed George Bush’s weekend veto of Congressional limits on the CIA’s use of torture might lead to the conclusion that, reprehensible as “torture” might be in remote, secret CIA locations, it could never happen here in the US. But the Bush administration’s abuse of power in its treatment of Dr. Sami al Arian and other acquitted Palestinian “terrorism-defendants” has already demonstrated that “torture” for this administration is commonplace - even here.

In December 2005, a Tampa jury acquitted Dr. Al Arian of “terrorism” charges. Two years later he is still in prison, and in the 6th day of a hunger-strike because the Bush administration refuses to honor a May 2006 promise to release and deport him. Unless he receives proper medical care within days, he risks irreversible renal failure and death - all under the watchful eyes of the Bush “Justice” Department.

Apparently, “legal black holes” like Guantanamo can be created without having to set-up a special overseas prison, if domestic law can be sufficiently manipulated. And the Bush administration is very, very good at manipulation, both legal and otherwise.

A Propagandized Arrest and Pre-Trial Torture

In a February 2003 Moscow press conference, then Attorney-General John Ashcroft breathlessly announced the FBI capture of “the major North American financier for terrorism in the middle-east”, in Tampa, Florida, of all places. Ashcroft pointed proudly to obviously, pre-arranged media coverage of a shackled Dr. Sami Al Arian being taken from his home by a SWAT team, with his children cowering in the background.

The images were a lot like those of US troops and cowering Iraqi women. But this was not Iraq, or Afghanistan. And Dr. Al Arian was never even suspected of any violence. He was a well-known and well-respected academic and Palestinian activist, and that, the jury concluded more that 2 years later, had been his only “crime.”

For more than a year before trial, Dr. Al Arian was in Super-Max isolation on 24/7 lockdown. He was denied family visits and was chained whenever he was out of his cell, even to talk to his lawyers. Super-Max prisoners are usually only convicts too violent to live in the general prison population, criminals among criminals. But the Bush administration put Dr. Al Arian in the Super-Max, hundreds of miles from his family, even before the final charges against him had been decided, and without even accusing him of being violent. It was...torture.

On top of Guantanamo-like conditions, Dr. Al Arian was denied warm clothing, writing materials and was subject to taunting guards, convinced by Bush administration propaganda that he was a second Osama bin Laden. Things got so bad that the Justice Department Inspector General is investigating abuse by guards. A UN body formally objected to his conditions of confinement before trial.

By the beginning of trial in July 2005, the original 200 charges against Dr. Al Arian and his 3 co-defendants were reduced to eliminate any mention of the accusations leveled by Ashcroft. But the remaining 94 “terrorism-related” counts could result in the death penalty or life in prison, including the 17 counts facing Dr. Al Arian, if he had been convicted. But he wasn’t convicted, and neither were any of his co-defendants.

Trial By Jury: Still a “Bulwark” Against Government Abuse

After hearing 6 months of evidence, including 80 witnesses; hundreds of hours of FISA wiretaps culled from 425,000 conversations recorded over 10 years; testimony of Israeli intelligence agents; heart-wrenching testimony of Israeli suicide bombing victims; graphic video of suffering bombing victims; and more than $50 million in taxpayer money being thrown at the case, the jury refused to find any of the defendants guilty of anything!

Dr. Al Arian’s lawyers, Linda Moreno and Bill Moffett, did not call one witness or put on one piece of evidence. The defense was the First Amendment right to free speech and the lack of any connection between Dr. Al Arian’s lawful support for the Palestinian struggle in the U.S. and the tragic violence connected to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

On December 2005 TIME Magazine called Dr. Al Arian’s acquittal “the biggest defeat for the Bush Administration to date” [1], and so it was. It was also a victory for the United States Constitution. The Tampa jury upheld the best traditions of our Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, that is supposed to be a “bulwark” against misuse of governmental power.

For a while it seemed that the Constitution was actually working the way it was supposed to, but the Bush administration made sure that this illusion did not last for long. Within days, the administration said they were going to re-try Dr. Al Arian on the lesser charges on which the jury “hung” 10-2 for acquittal. Re-trial is not illegal, but highly unusual when the evidence was so clearly rejected by the jury.

But at the same time the Bush administration was telling the world they would try Dr. Al Arian again, they secretly approached Al Arian’s lawyers with “an offer he couldn’t refuse” in early 2006 to avoid government being embarrassed by another acquittal.

Setting the Trap: “An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse”

The Bush-administration promised to: (a) drop all charges; (b) release Dr. Al Arian in 30 days; and (c) assist in deporting him to country of his choice, immediately upon his release. Compared to the death penalty or life in prison that he had been facing weeks earlier, it was a difficult offer to turn down but he did precisely that, because there were a couple of “catches” he and his lawyers refused to accept.

First, he would have to plead guilty to a crime, and he had not committed any crimes. Second, the standard Tampa plea-agreement had a “grand jury co-operation” clause, and Dr. Al Arian would not agree to either. The Bush administration panicked and sweetened their offer.

If Dr. Al Arian would only admit having helped his brother-in-law with immigration matters, and not telling a reporter about a colleague’s political associations, both of which were true, and neither of which were crimes, the Bush-administration would agree call the legal, non-violent acts evidence of a “conspiracy,” and recommend his release by the end of May 2006.

But Dr. Al Arian and his lawyers still said “no-deal” because he absolutely refused to “co-operate” with a Bush Justice Department that had set him up and prosecuted him for political reasons. So the Bush-administration “blinked” again, because they needed to avoid another embarrassing defeat.

This time, they removed the “grand jury co-operation” requirement because, as they admitted in court, it was only way to get his name on the dotted line. They also admitted, in court on April 14, that the terms of their agreement with Al Arian had been approved in Washington, D.C. and specifically applied to Alexandria, Virginia, the federal district where most of the Pentagon’s employees live and a favorite place for grand-jury “terrorism” investigations.