Sami Al-Arian

Who is Sami Al-Arian?

Sami Amin Al-Arian is a Palestinian-American civil rights activist who was a computer engineering professor at University of South Florida. During the Clinton administration and Bush administration, he was invited to the White House. He actively campaigned for the Bush presidential campaign in the United States presidential election in 2000.

After a contentious interview with Bill O'Reilly in the The O'Reilly Factor following the September 11 attacks, Al-Arian's tenure at University of South Florida came under extreme public scrutiny.

He was indicted in February 2003 on 17 counts under the Patriot Act. A grand jury acquitted him on 8 counts and deadlocked on the remaining 9 counts. He later struck a plea bargain and admitted to one of the remaining charges in exchange for being released and deported by April 2007. However, as his release date approached, a federal prosecutor in Virginia demanded he testify before a grand jury in a separate case, which he refused to do, claiming it would violate his plea deal. He was held under house arrest in Northern Virginia from 2008 until 2014 when Federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss charges against him.