Two agents set up an interview with Sami Al-Arian. They asked about his thoughts on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and about terrorism as a tactic.

``He told us he was opposed to that,'' retired FBI Agent Manny Perez testified Monday in Al-Arian's trial on charges that he supported the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. ``He did not see acts of terrorism as a solution to the situation in the Middle East.''

He also told the agents he often gave guest lectures about the occupied territories.

He did just that 12 weeks later in Cleveland. There, according to a government translation of a videotaped rally, he was introduced as the head of ``the active arm of the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine.'' His speech praised ``those men who belonged to Islamic Jihad'' for a gunbattle Jihad followers say sparked the first Palestinian uprising in 1987.

Perez told the court he didn't know about the Cleveland speech and nobody from the FBI monitored it. ``We would not have been allowed to'' under Department of Justice guidelines. Jurors have yet to see the videotape.

Perez met Al-Arian again that June, again at the direction of FBI headquarters. Al- Arian was asked about recent U.S. visits made by a man named Bashir Nafi, identified in the indictment as a founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Neither he nor Nafi was an Islamic Jihad member, Al- Arian said.

Perez said he thought about developing Al-Arian as an ``asset,'' or someone who provides information to the FBI, but he gave up on the idea after his third meeting.

``I was convinced in my own mind that Mr. Al-Arian was an active member of'' the Islamic Jihad, Perez said.

Also Monday, the former chairman of USF's Committee for Middle East Studies testified that programs co- sponsored by a think tank Al- Arian founded were educational and appropriate. Mark Orr, 91, said he led the faculty committee but did not negotiate a 1991 deal in which the two sides agreed to share libraries and co-sponsor academic events.

``We had people of all perspectives debating the speakers,'' Orr said.

USF ended its cooperation with the think tank in October 1995 when the group's director, Ramadan Shallah, appeared in Syria as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's new leader. That shocked the USF faculty, he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge James Moody adjourned court early Monday. Attorneys for both sides wanted to meet to agree on something ``that could save the court a lot of time,'' federal prosecutor Cherie Krigsman said. Attorneys would not give details.

Reporter Michael Fechter can be reached at (813) 259-7621.