Not all is rosy for the Rumpled Academic. From the Washington Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
TAMPA, Dec. 13 — The family and friends of former college professor Sami al-Arian greeted his acquittal on terrorism charges last week with exclamations of “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great” — and “God bless America.”
It was, they said, a political and moral victory.
But in the week since those moments of euphoria, it has become increasingly clear to his supporters that his legal triumph was not necessarily a personal one.
Al-Arian, who was arrested more than two years ago, is still jailed as federal prosecutors decide whether to retry him on the counts on which the jury deadlocked. Even if prosecutors drop the outstanding charges, immigration authorities have indicated that he will probably remain incarcerated while he is facing deportation proceedings.
Outside the federal courthouse in Tampa on Tuesday, a civil rights group conducted a small protest and waved signs that said “Let Sami Out” and “The Jury Has Spoken.”
“The anxiety is still there,” al-Arian’s wife, Nahla, said earlier near their home close to the University of South Florida, where al-Arian was a well-liked professor of computer science. The couple has five children. “I feel anxious. I feel tired. I want my husband back with us.”…
A videotape showed al-Arian saying “Death to Israel” and a letter found at his house had him praising a suicide bombing in Israel. A close associate at the university, Ramadan Shallah, left for the Middle East in 1995 and within months became the leader of Islamic Jihad….
His supporters defend his words as a matter of free speech. His wife put them in a political context.
“What people do not understand is that victims say bad words about their victimizers,” Nahla al-Arian said, when asked about some of her husband’s remarks. “We are the victims. . . . We don’t hate people. We don’t hate the Jews. We hate the occupation.”
Yeah, surrrre.