Attorneys for Sami Al-Arian claim anti-Muslim bias. Refusing to testify befoe grand juries is leading to contempt charge
A federal prosecutor who has led a series of investigations into Islamic militants and Muslim groups based in Virginia, Gordon Kromberg, may soon be facing a trial of sorts himself, if defense lawyers get their way.
Attorneys for a former Florida college professor who pleaded guilty two years ago to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian, are asking a federal judge to hold a hearing on whether anti-Muslim bias led to the government’s decision to obtain a new indictment of Al-Arian in June for contempt for refusing to testify before grand juries pursuing the Virginia organizations.
While the motion claims Muslim terrorism suspects are generally treated unfairly by the Justice Department, Al-Arian’s lawyers argue that Mr. Kromberg, 51, has a particularly egregious record of intemperate statements and actions in a series of terrorism-related cases and investigations.
…A former federal terrorism prosecutor, Andrew McCarthy, said complaints that the Virginia probe is moving too slowly are silly coming from Al-Arian and others who have refused to cooperate. Several witnesses affiliated with IIIT have filed legal challenges to grand jury subpoenas and have pursued appeals to the 4th Circuit, resulting in lengthy delays. “I’m always amused when people who have obstructed an investigation for years, at the conclusion of years say, ‘Years have gone by and nothing has been revealed,’” Mr. McCarthy said.
Justice Department officials also reject the notion that the IIIT probe, which grew out of an effort dubbed Operation Green Quest, has yielded nothing. They note the arrest and subsequent guilty plea of Abdurahman Alamoudi, a former Muslim-American political leader and founder of the American Muslim Council, who admitted in 2004 to involvement in a Libyan plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Alamoudi, whose home was among those searched in 2002 and who worked for a group related to IIIT, the Saar Foundation, was sentenced to 23 years in prison.