It has been a long time since we had a...Rumpled Academic Update. But Sami Al-Arian, having been definitively exposed as a jihadist and having pled guilty to terror-related charges, is a true believer to the end, and is still waging a courtroom jihad. "Court denies Fla. ex-professor's appeal," from AP (thanks to Sr. Soph):
ATLANTA - A former Florida college professor who pleaded guilty to aiding a Palestinian terrorist group was not immune from a subpoena forcing him to testify in an unrelated probe of Muslim charities, an appeals court ruled Friday.
Sami Al-Arian, 50, had argued the terms of the plea agreement exempted him from testifying before a grand jury in an investigation of Islamic charities in Virginia.
A federal judge disagreed and found Al-Arian guilty of contempt when he refused to testify.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Al-Arian's appeal Friday, ruling that federal prosecutors did not violate the plea agreement by forcing him to testify in the Virginia case.
Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, was acquitted on eight counts of aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After a six-month trial, jurors deadlocked on nine other counts.
He pleaded guilty in 2006 to one count of providing services to members of the terrorist group, rather than face a retrial. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison and will be deported after serving the sentence.
And every lover of freedom should hoist a Carlsberg in celebration when he is gone.
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