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Court Denies Fla. Ex-Professor's Appeal
A former Florida college professor who pleaded guilty to aiding a Palestinian terrorist group was not immune from a subpoena forcing him to testify in an unrelated probe of Muslim charities, an appeals court ruled Friday.Sami Al-Arian, 50, had argued the terms of the plea agreement exempted him from testifying before a grand jury in an investigation of Islamic charities in Virginia. A federal judge disagreed and found Al-Arian guilty of contempt when he refused to testify. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Al-Arian's appeal Friday, ruling that federal prosecutors did not violate the plea agreement by forcing him to testify in the Virginia case. An attorney for Al-Arian in the contempt case said a clause requiring him to testify in other cases was specifically removed when the plea agreement was written because Al-Arian made it clear to prosecutors that he wouldn't do it. "This is politics, this is not law," his attorney, C. Peter Erlinder, said of the ruling. Posted by: ryuge 2008-01-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=221557 |