In a sweeping 50-count indictment, federal authorities in Florida on Thursday charged eight men — including a college professor and three other U.S. residents — with supporting and financing a violent Palestinian terrorist group blamed for the deaths of more than 100 people in Israel and the occupied territories. “Our message to them and to others like them is clear: We make no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance, manage or supervise terrorist organizations,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
The incident, returned by a federal grand jury in Tampa, Fla., was unsealed after the arrests of the four defendants living in the United States — three in Tampa and a fourth in suburban Chicago. The other four men, living overseas, remain at large, Ashcroft said.
It charges that the men are members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, designated by the United States as a terrorist organization. Among them are a Palestinian professor at the University of South Florida, Sami Amin Al-Arian, who is described as the group’s U.S. leader and secretary of its worldwide council.
ARRESTS DENOUNCED AS ‘FICTION’
Al-Arian, 45, was taken in handcuffs to the federal courthouse in Tampa after his arrest, where he told reporters, “It’s all about politics,” as agents led him inside.
Al-Arian has said previously that he is an for Palestinian rights and has denied any connection to terrorism.
His attorney, Nicholas Matassini, said after a preliminary court hearing, “He’s a political prisoner right now as we speak.” The attorney denounced the indictment as “a work of fiction.”
The indictment charges the eight men with operating a criminal racketeering enterprise since 1984 that supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad and with conspiracy to kill and maim people abroad, conspiracy to provide material support to the group, extortion, perjury and other charges.
Each defendant faces up to life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges.
ALLEGED PURPOSE: TO DESTROY ISRAEL
The group is described in the indictment as rejecting peaceful solutions to the Palestinian quest for a homeland in the Middle East and with embracing “the Jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only choice for liberation.” The group’s purpose, prosecutors alleged, is to destroy Israel and end all U.S. and Western influence in the region, Ashcroft said.
Among the 100 people whose killings are blamed on the organization in Israel and the territories are those of two U.S. citizens: Alisa Flatow, 20, and Shoshana Ben-Yishai, 16.
The killings included suicide bombings, car bombings and drive-by shootings, most recently a June 5, 2002, suicide attack in Haifa, Israel, that killed 20 and injured 50.
The defendants allegedly provided financial support through a number of U.S.-based entities, resolved internal conflicts, helped communicate claims of responsibility for terrorist actions and made false statements to immigration officials to help terrorists.
Those arrested in the United States were described as setting up a terrorist cell at the University of South Florida. They are:
Al-Arian, the Florida college professor the government says ran the organization’s U.S. operations. Al-Arian is a native of Kuwait and taught engineering at the university before being placed on forced leave and banned from the campus shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Sameeh Hammoudeh, 42, born in the West Bank and now a resident of Temple Terrace, Fla. He also is an instructor at the University of South Florida and administrator at the Islamic Academy of Florida.
Hatim Naji Fariz, 30, born in Puerto Rico and now living in Spring Hill, Fla. He is a manager at a medical clinic.
Ghassan Zayed Ballut, 41, a West Bank native now living in Tinley Park, Ill., and owner of a small business.
FOUR BEING SOUGHT
The others named in the indictment are:
Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, 45, a Gaza Strip native who now resides in Damascus, Syria. He is described as the worldwide leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is a former instructor at the University of South Florida.
Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, originally from Egypt and now living in Oxfordshire, England. The indictment calls him the group’s leader in the United Kingdom.
Mohammed Tasir Hassan Al-Khatib, 46, originally from the Gaza Strip and now living in Beirut; described as the treasurer of the organization.
Abd Al Aziz Awda, 52, born in Israel and now imam of the Al Qassam Mosque in Gaza Strip. The indictment calls him the founder and “spiritual leader” of the group.
Al-Arian’s attorney, Nicholas Matassini, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
The office of U.S. Attorney Paul Perez in central Florida had said last year that Al-Arian was under federal investigation.
“This was disconcerting but not surprising,” University of South Florida spokesman Michael Reich said of the arrest. He said university President Judy Genshaft was to meet with the school’s lawyers later in the day to discuss the situation.
VIDEOTAPES AMONG EVIDENCE
Sources told NBC News before the indictment was announced that among the evidence that the government will present to support the charges are videotapes produced by Al-Arian and seized by the government in 1995. In the tapes, Al-Arian is seen saying, “Jihad is our path” and “Death to Israel.”
Al-Arian has said that he has never advocated violence against others and that his words were a statement against Israeli occupation. He also has consistently denied any connection to terrorists.
“I’m being punished for being Palestinian and have pro-Palestinian views,” he said in an interview last year on NBC’s “Today” show. “I’m a Palestinian, I’m an Arab, I’m a Muslim, and that’s not a popular thing to be,” he said.
FOUNDED THINK TANK
The university says that hurt the school’s fund-raising efforts and resulted in threats against the school.
Al-Arian and his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, founded World and Islam Studies Enterprises, a now-defunct Islamic think tank at USF that was raided by the FBI in 1995. Al-Arian also founded the Islamic Concern Project Inc. in 1988.
He has lived in the United States since 1975 and had taught at the university since 1986.
Last month, the faculty union at the University of South Florida filed a grievance on Al-Arian’s behalf, saying that banning him from campus violated the union’s contract, Al-Arian’s right to academic freedom and its own policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religious affiliation.
His brother-in-law, who also had taught at the university, spent more than 3 1/2 years in jail on secret evidence linking him to terrorists. He was released in 2000 but arrested again in November 2001 and deported last August.