Jury fails to convict terror suspect

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- For more than five months, jurors in the case of a former professor accused of helping lead a Palestinian terrorist group reviewed hundreds of documents, heard from dozens of witnesses and watched videos in which the defendants appeared to speak glowingly of suicide bombers.
But it wasn't enough. Sami Al-Arian was acquitted Tuesday on nearly half the charges against him, and the jury deadlocked on the rest in a stinging defeat for the federal government. His case was seen as one of the biggest courtroom tests yet of the Patriot Act's expanded search-and-surveillance powers.
Al-Arian and three co-defendants were accused of being the communications arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, spreading the word and raising money that went toward suicide attacks that have killed hundreds in Israel.
But the jury could not convict any of the four on the charges laid out in a complex, 51-count indictment. Al-Arian was acquitted of eight of the 17 counts against him, including a charge of conspiring to maim and murder people overseas.
A male juror, whose name was being kept secret by the court, said the case came down to lack of proof: "I didn't see the evidence." Al-Arian, 47, wept after the verdicts, and his attorney Linda Moreno hugged him. He will remain jailed until prosecutors decide whether to retry him on the deadlocked counts.
Two co-defendants, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were acquitted of all charges. A third, Hatem Naji Fariz, was found not guilty of 24 counts, and jurors deadlocked on the remaining eight.
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