Dr Al-Arian: GUILTY (Despite Being Found Not Guilty by A Jury of Your Peers)

Dr Sami Al-Arian, who has been imprisoned by the United States Judicial System since 2003, held in prison long before his trial and long after a grand jury failed to find him guilty of even a single charge against him, is now in danger of suffering irreversible kidney failure.

Law Professor Peter Erlinder writes:

This is Dr. Al Arian’s third hunger-strike during his 5 years of imprisonment. The first was in 2005 and lasted 140 days on liquids only, before he was permitted the lawyers of his choice. In early 2006 he drank only water for 60 days, when the court refused to require the Bush-administration to honor their “no grand jury cooperation” promise, the first time. Now, he is refusing all food and liquids was transferred to the prison hospital on March 5. But he is not getting necessary medical treatment.

As of Monday, March 10, Dr. Al Arian has not received any intravenous liquids, and he is in danger of irreversible renal failure - yet another kind of torture, that could be ended with proper medical care. If Dr. Al Arian dies, AUSA Kromberg will have accomplished his stated “mission”, so the question is, will anybody else respond, before it is too late?

In 2005, I stood in front of a class made up of students from eight or nine different countries. We all had to present news articles, and my article covered the verdict of the jury in the trial of Dr Sami Al-Arian. He was not found guilty of a single charge brought against him by the government, I said. The government spent millions of dollars trying to make a case against Dr Al-Arian over a six month trial, I said. Dr Al-Arian's lawyers, when it came their turn to argue, stood and said simply that clearly, the government has failed to make a case against this man, whose only crime is saying what he believes. The jury found him not guilty on many of the charges, and hung on the rest, I said.

I fully expected him to be released. After all, a man found not guilty by a jury of his peers can't possibly stay in prison, right?

This was the same class in which a woman from Turkey asked me to speak as a citizen of the US to the human rights abuses of the US government, because this was of great concern to her as other governments worldwide look to the US for leadership. I was unclear as to whether she was talking about abuses within the States or outside.

She was talking about within. I wonder if the people who were in that class have any idea that the topic of my article is, in fact, still in prison, and threatened with kidney failure a few weeks before his scheduled release date.