“This case was a big blow for the war on terrorism…. Sami al-Arian was a major player on the wrong side of this war. Because someone like him – someone who was so blatantly involved in terrorism – was acquitted, the Justice Department may think twice before bringing future terror cases to trial. And that undoubtedly will embolden the enemy.”
Joe Kaufman of Americans Against Hate – an organisation that devotes itself to spreading hatred against Muslims – bemoans the fact that an innocent man was found not guilty of terrorism charges.
Front Page Magazine, 7 December 2005
Cf. Eric Boehlert’s account: “Al-Arian didn’t call a single witness on his behalf. That might have been because prosecutors, who had tapped Al-Arian’s phone for years and collected 20,000 hours of conversations, failed to present a single phone call in which violent terrorist acts were plotted.”