The Council of American Islamic Relations and their support for a convicted terror supporter, Sami Al-Arian, places them, once again, siding with the Islamic world rather than America.
Former university professor Sami al-Arian wants to finish serving his prison sentence for a terrorism-related crime next month so that he can be deported to the Palestinian territories. But the Bush administration is threatening to keep him behind bars until he does something he has steadfastly refused to do: testify before a grand jury investigating allegations that Muslim charities aided terrorism organizations.
...Arian started a hunger strike early this month to protest his subpoena, and he was recently transferred to a prison medical center in North Carolina after losing six pounds in 36 hours. He went on a previous hunger strike that lasted months.
...Arian was at the center of one of the nation's highest profile terrorism cases, accused of conspiracy to commit racketeering and murder and to aid a terrorist group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in 2003.
Two years later, a jury acquitted him of eight counts and deadlocked on others, but Arian pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to "make or receive funds . . . for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad" and was sentenced to 57 months in prison, which included time already served.
Update 4/21/08: According to terrorism expert, Steve Emmerson, CAIR and the Muslim American Society helped secure face to face meetings between the Al-Arian family and members of Congress, including House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, to lobby for pressure on the Department of Justice to release Al-Arian. At an event on Capitol Hill sponsored by Georgetown University April 3, attended by CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, Congressman Keith Ellison (D-M[N]), one of only two Muslims in Congress, asserted that he would seek additional congressional support for Al-Arian.
---"In the past few weeks, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad referred to Sami Al-Arian as "a political prisoner." MAS even compared Al-Arian - who had called for "Death to Israel"-- to Martin Luther King. U.S. District Judge James Moody saw the evidence of Al-Arian's deep involvement in the PIJ. This is what the judge said of him at sentencing:
"But when it came to blowing up women and children on buses, did you leap into action then? Did you offer to form a committee to protect the innocent? Did you call your fellow directors and enlist their aid in stopping the bombing or even stop the targeting of the innocent? No. You lifted not one finger, made not one phone call. To the contrary, you laughed when you heard about the bombings, what you euphemistically call ‘operations." You even pleaded for donations to pay for more such operations.
…Your only connection to widows and orphans is that you create them, even among Palestinians." IPT
Georgetown University was the recipient of a $20 million gift from Saudi Arabia.
If CAIR is so against Islamic terrorism as they proclaim, why wouldn't they be encouraging Al-Arian to testify before the grand jury so authorities can get to the bottom of terrorist activites that Al-Arian may or may not have knowledge?
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