The Rumpled Academic again confronts the fruit of his labors. Al-Arian update from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:
TAMPA, Fla. — A witness to a double suicide bombing in Israel described pools of blood and raining body parts Monday at the trial of a former college professor accused of helping the Palestinian group that staged the attack.
Yuval Avargil, an Israeli police officer who witnessed the Jan. 22, 1995 attack that killed 22 people at Beit Lid, said he saw twisted bodies lying in puddles of blood and saw body parts fall from the sky.
“I opened my eyes, I heard something rolling near me, I saw a head of a soldier with his eyes open on the side,” he said.
Sami Al-Arian, who taught at the University of South Florida, and three other defendants on trial are accused of raising money and supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group blamed for more than 100 deaths in Israel, including those in Beit Lid.
An FBI agent testified last week that, less than three weeks after the Beit Lid bombing, Al-Arian referred to it in a letter to a Kuwaiti legislator as “the latest operation, carried out by the two mujahideen (holy warriors) who were martyred for the sake of God.” Prosecutors say the letter sought money for the families of the suicide bombers.