Mary Jo Melone, staff writer for Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, has been a staunch defender of former USF professor Sami al-Arian. But after getting a look at an affidavit detailing the disturbing items found in several homes searched during the investigation, Ms. Melone has decided it is time to rethink the defense of Al-Arian.

For a long time, I have defended Sami Al-Arian.

The former University of South Florida professor indicted last February deserves the chance the law gives him to reply to his indictment in federal court, I said. We should stand by until the charges against him - that he is the leader of a U.S. faction of a Palestinian terrorist group and one of its chief fundraisers - can be aired.

But the government released an outline of some of its evidence last week, and it is no longer possible to simply look away.

The outline came in the form of an affidavit a customs agent submitted to a federal judge last year when the agent sought approval for a search of several Virginia homes, businesses and charities with Islamic affiliations.

Al-Arian’s name, and that of the alleged terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are all over the affidavit. It discloses some of what investigators found on his home computer when they first investigated him in the mid 1990s.

Some of the information is not new. But presented in one 17-page document, it reads like a CliffsNotes version of the Al-Arian case.

The records include plans for military training for Muslims in America loyal to the Palestinian cause.

If true, this is not the work of a man having his academic freedom and civil rights trashed by government authorities.

If true, this is a man the government has good reason to pursue.