Sami Al-Arian appeared more than disappointed when his wife told him to expect only three shirts.

``No, that's nonsense,'' he told her in a telephone call in July 1999. ``They had 25 shirts. They sent over nine. Sixteen remained in addition to the others.''

Prosecutors say the call was about money, not clothes. It was among hundreds of conversations intercepted by the FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That law allows electronic surveillance of people suspected of being agents of a foreign power or terrorist organization.

The calls are the heart of a 53-count indictment charging Al-Arian and three co-defendants with racketeering and conspiracy and providing material support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Prosecutors insist the conversations are coded, with ``books'' and ``shirts'' most commonly referring to money, and normally in $1,000 increments. Nine shirts in this case equals $9,000, they say.

Six days later, Al-Arian called the USF Federal Credit Union, checking on a wire transfer inadvertently sent to his savings account.

The teller then transferred nearly $9,000 from Al-Arian's savings account to checking.

FBI Agent Kerry Myers was asked few questions about the conversations read to jurors Tuesday. It wasn't clear why money was sent from the Middle East to Tampa.

The last call read to jurors on Tuesday included defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh venting about Al-Arian's leadership at an Islamic school in Tampa. In a phone conversation in June 2000 with Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al- Najjar, Hammoudeh complained that Al-Arian was detached and was overworking him at the Islamic Academy of Florida.

``Man, everybody has come to hate him,'' Hammoudeh said. ``All have come to feel that the matter is one of `master and slaves.' I mean, he expects people to line up behind him at the mere mention of something.''

Hammoudeh sat reading the transcript off a courtroom monitor with his arms crossed as prosecutors read the translated dialogue. Al-Arian sat less than 5 feet away, separated only by defense attorney Stephen Bernstein.