Florida Senate hopeful is criticized for role in Al-Arian terror financing case
By Robert
Why did Sami Al-Arian continue for so long as a professor at the University of South Florida, despite credible allegations that he was involved with terrorists? Partly because of former USF president Betty Castor, who is now running for the Senate. From AP:
TAMPA -- Betty Castor had not yet marked her first anniversary as president of the University of South Florida in 1994 when allegations that Islamic terrorists had set up a fund-raising operation would turn the campus into a place mockingly called "Jihad University."
A documentary, "Jihad in America," and a series of articles in The Tampa Tribune detailed how a computer science professor and Muslim activist named Sami AlArian had set up an academic think tank affiliated with USF that was being investigated as a possible front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. ...
It only got worse in mid-1995, when an instructor Al-Arian helped bring to the campus, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, abruptly left and emerged in Syria as the new leader of the Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group blamed for more than 100 deaths in attacks in Israel.
Now, more than a decade later, AlArian, Shallah and six other men are under federal indictment in Tampa on charges they used the think tank, World and Islam Studies Enterprises, and an affiliated charity as fronts to raise money for the Islamic Jihad.
Prosecutors have identified Al-Arian as the North American head of the organization, a charge that Al-Arian denies. The indictment charges him with using the think tank and a charity he founded to bring terrorists into the United States to attend conferences where money was raised to finance attacks in Israel. Al-Arian has denied any wrongdoing.
Castor, 63, is now running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate and is again having to explain how an alleged terrorist cell existed on campus.
Her critics do not blame her for bringing Al-Arian to USF. He had been hired years before she became president and was already a tenured professor when she took the helm in 1994.
But her detractors say when Castor was faced with allegations about Al-Arian and his colleagues, she was slow to take action. She resigned in 1999 to take another education-related job. AlArian remained a professor at USF until 2003 when he was fired after being indicted.
In a telephone interview Friday, Castor told The Associated Press that she was hamstrung to rid the university of Al-Arian. Without an indictment, she said she did not have enough evidence to fire him.
Castor said she took the matter seriously and assigned the university's lawyer and police chief to investigate, but ultimately had to rely on the FBI, which took eight years to arrest Al-Arian.
"My hands were tied because the FBI's hands were tied," Castor said.
But her critics argue that she had enough evidence to deal with Al-Arian.
"At this point, she is responsible for a major, world-class terrorist group operating under her nose," said John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor. Loftus, now an author and commentator in Tampa, sued Al-Arian in 2002, alleging terrorist fund raising after he complained that authorities, including Castor, failed to act.
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