Friend Testifies He Gave Al-Arian Jihad Update
Published: Oct 4, 2005
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TAMPA - Appearing reluctantly and with a court-signed grant of immunity, a close friend of Sami Al-Arian testified Monday that he gave Al-Arian a status report on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad after a 1994 visit to the Gaza Strip.
Abdel Dabus' Jan. 9, 1994, phone conversation with Al-Arian was among the first that federal agents intercepted using secret warrants to monitor the then-University of South Florida computer scientist. The situation in Gaza was miserable, he told Al-Arian. "The guys" needed an arrangement.
Al-Arian "is a Palestinian Muslim leader," Dabus told Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter E. Furr. "We are talking about the Muslim organizations there." Specifically, he said, they discussed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Arian and three other men are charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, murder abroad and to provide material support to terrorists. Prosecutors might rest their case this week as the trial enters its fifth month.
Dabus said he and Al-Arian had been friends for years but grew closer after he moved to Tampa in 1999 and took a job at a private school run by Al-Arian. He spoke succinctly and said he did not want to be in court. He said he was not a member of the Islamic Jihad but, as a Palestinian, supported those who fought Israeli occupation.
"This trial should be in Tel Aviv," he said, "not here."
Still, Dabus verified a number of code words prosecutors have said the defendants used in their conversations. Among them, "the guys" is a reference to Islamic Jihad members, "the interior" means the occupied territories and "Moussa's group" refers to rival terrorist group Hamas.
Under cross-examination, he described Al-Arian as a successful political activist who met with the president of the United States. Al-Arian's arrest shows the system has changed in the United States, Dabus said. He said he feels as though he has no security. He choked up when defense attorney William Moffitt asked if he was afraid.
Prosecutors then called Daniel Vara, chief counsel for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Orlando. In 2000, Vara led immigration efforts to keep Al-Arian's brother-in-law in jail while he appealed a deportation order.
Secret evidence shown only to an immigration judge deemed Mazen Al-Najjar a national security threat with ties to the Islamic Jihad. Al-Najjar was freed in December 2000 after the immigration judge ruled he saw no evidence Al-Najjar constituted a security threat. Judge R. Kevin McHugh also dismissed government allegations that a charity and think tank Al-Najjar worked with were Islamic Jihad fronts.
Prosecutors argue that Al-Arian, Al-Najjar and others obstructed justice by manipulating evidence in those hearings. Prosecutors say the effort was less about helping Al-Najjar win his freedom and more about protecting the group's hidden activities.
The testimony offered "a really fantastic, inconceivable explanation that really none of these people had a connection to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to basically shut down whatever investigation the government may have," Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Zitek said Monday.
Al-Najjar testified at a hearing in 2000 that he never had a relationship with Islamic Jihad. So did Basheer Nafi. Both men are indicted in this case but live abroad and have not been arrested.
Al-Arian testified during the hearing but said little, invoking his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination dozens of times.
Jurors already have seen transcripts of secretly intercepted calls showing Al-Arian, Nafi and others discussing internal Islamic Jihad disputes. Al-Arian offered a series of proposals to settle those issues, including some that put Al-Najjar on an Islamic Jihad finance committee. Prosecutors say the men also served on the group's governing board.
WHAT HAPPENED
A friend of Sami Al-Arian's testifies about a coded 1994 conversation on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's strength in the Gaza Strip.
