58 Facts About Sami Al-Arian

Sami Amin Al-Arian is a Kuwaiti-born political activist of Palestinian origin who was a computer engineering professor at University of South Florida.

Sami Al-Arian actively campaigned for the Bush presidential campaign in the United States presidential election in 2000.

Sami Al-Arian was indicted in February 2003 on 17 counts under the Patriot Act.

Sami Al-Arian later struck a plea bargain and admitted to one of the remaining charges in exchange for being released and deported by April 2007.

Sami Al-Arian was held under house arrest in Northern Virginia from 2008 until 2014 when federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss charges against him.

Sami Al-Arian was deported to Turkey on February 4,2015.

Sami Al-Arian received his primary and secondary education at Cairo, Egypt.

Sami Al-Arian left Egypt in 1975, and returned in 1979 for a visit when he married Nahla Al-Najjar.

In 1975, Sami Al-Arian came to the United States to study engineering at Southern Illinois University.

Sami Al-Arian worked with Professor Dharma P Agrawal on physical failures and fault models of CMOS circuits.

Sami Al-Arian moved to Temple Terrace after he was hired as an assistant professor to teach computer engineering at University of South Florida on January 22,1986.

Sami Al-Arian was granted permanent resident status for United States in March 1989.

Sami Al-Arian was promoted from an assistant professor to an associate professor with tenure.

Sami Al-Arian received many accolades relating to teaching including the Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award in 1993 and a salary raise based on merit grades via the Teaching Incentive Program in 1994.

Sami Al-Arian served as an imam for a local mosque and as a charter officer for the local religious school.

Sami Al-Arian criticized the peace process led by Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and advocated support for the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation during the 1980s and early 1990s.

On October 20,1988, Sami Al-Arian established the Islamic Concern Project, which included a committee devoted to raising charity for Palestine.

USF placed Sami Al-Arian on paid administrative leave in May 1996 pending the outcome of a federal investigation which had an indefinite time frame.

Several legal analysts and Sami Al-Arian were convinced that Sami Al-Arian, not Al-Najjar, was the focus of the Al-Najjar's court case.

Sami Al-Arian overstayed his US student visa, and was deported in August 2002.

In 2000, Sami Al-Arian co-founded and led the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom.

Sami Al-Arian visited the White House four times from 1997 to 2001.

Sami Al-Arian met Bush during a campaign stop at the Florida Strawberry Festival to demonstrate against the Clinton administration's use of secret evidence.

On June 20,2001, Sami Al-Arian joined 160 Muslim-American activists in a White House briefing with Bush senior adviser Karl Rove.

The Tampa Bay Muslim Alliance and Sami Al-Arian had helped the resettlement of 50 families fleeing from the Bosnian War.

Sami Al-Arian encouraged the nation to pursue those responsible but simultaneously discouraged acts of war that might impact innocent people.

Sami Al-Arian discouraged radio talk show hosts from spreading hate-filled rhetoric and called for national unity.

Sami Al-Arian had opposed the War in Iraq and has spoken at a rally against the war.

Sami Al-Arian has been critical of neoconservatism and the Zionist movement.

At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Lakeland in February 2002, Sami Al-Arian discussed the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and answered questions from the community regarding his USF quandary.

AAUP investigators went on to conclude that Genshaft's decision to place Sami Al-Arian on paid administrative leave rather than suspension reflected her lack of faith in legal advice that green-lighted Sami Al-Arian's firing.

AAUP's investigating committee determined USF's premise for Sami Al-Arian's removal was "insubstantial" and cited "grave issues of academic freedom and due process".

Former Central Intelligence Agency agent Vincent Cannistraro publicly rebuked allegations against Sami Al-Arian and testified in a civil disposition that Sami Al-Arian had no ties to illegal organizations.

In March 2002, John Loftus compounded on O'Reilly's accusations by citing anonymous sources and filing a lawsuit that claimed Sami Al-Arian used state-regulated organizations to launder money.

Sami Al-Arian was indicted with co-defendants Ghassan Ballut, Hatim Fariz, and Sameeh Hammoudeh.

At trial, the prosecution accused Sami Al-Arian of aiding Palestine Islamic Jihad, which the Clinton administration issued an executive order declaring the PIJ a "specially designated terrorist" organization in 1995.

On February 28,2006, Sami Al-Arian signed a plea agreement in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to contribute services to or for the benefit of the PIJ, a Specially Designated Terrorist organization, in violation of 18 USC.

The deal came after 11 years of Federal Bureau of Investigation investigations, wiretaps and searches, and three and a half years of trial preparation, time Sami Al-Arian spent in jail, most of it in solitary confinement.

Supporters of Sami Al-Arian said the agreement was reached in part to end his family's suffering and to reunite them.

Sami Al-Arian went on a 62-day hunger strike to protest the ruling.

Sami Al-Arian was subpoenaed three times to testify in terrorism-related investigations before Virginia federal grand juries between 2006 and 2008.

Sami Al-Arian challenged the initial subpoena in four different federal courts, each of which held that he was in fact required to testify.

Sami Al-Arian was imprisoned for 13 months for civil contempt for failing to testify in compliance with the first subpoena.

In May 2006, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a subpoena to Sami Al-Arian to testify before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in an investigation into the alleged financing of terror by the Herndon, Virginia-based International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Sami Al-Arian sought to quash it on the assertion that his plea agreement prevented his being forced to testify before the Virginia grand jury.

Sami Al-Arian said the government had agreed that he would not be required to cooperate with it in any manner, though that specific agreement was not reflected in the written plea agreement.

Fourth, Sami Al-Arian said he would not testify because he felt IIIT was inappropriately charged.

Sami Al-Arian appealed the Virginia District Court decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the lower court's ruling.

Sami Al-Arian appealed the Florida District Court decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court on January 25,2008.

At a January 2009 hearing to schedule his trial, his attorneys filed documents saying Sami Al-Arian "did cooperate and answer questions on IIIT" for federal prosecutors.

On February 4,2015, Sami Al-Arian was deported from the United States to Turkey.

Sami Al-Arian was flown on a commercial flight from Dulles International Airport from Herndon, Virginia to Turkey.

In 2017, Sami Al-Arian founded the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University in Istanbul, Turkey, which he directs.

In 2024, the New York Police Department and Mayor Eric Adams stated that Sami Al-Arian posted on Twitter a photo of his wife at the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupation.

Sami Al-Arian is married to Nahla Al-Najjar, and they have five children.

Sami Al-Arian's son Abdullah Al-Arian was an intern for US Representative David E Bonior in 2001.

Sami Al-Arian's eldest daughter, Laila Sami Al-Arian, is a producer for Al Jazeera English in Washington, DC, and a freelance journalist and contributor to the Huffington Post and The Nation.

USA vs Sami Al-Arian is a 2007 documentary film by Norwegian director Line Halvorsen about Sami Al-Arian and his family during and after his trial from his family's point of view, and a commentary on the US justice system under the Patriot Act.