A Palestinian Arab activist and former college professor who has been locked in a long-running legal battle with federal prosecutors, Sami Al-Arian, was indicted yesterday on two counts of criminal contempt for refusing to testify before grand juries investigating Islamic charities based in Virginia and elsewhere.

Al-Arian, 50, has argued that he could not be required to testify in the probes under the terms of his guilty plea in 2006 to a charge of providing assistance to a terrorist organization. The plea resolved the stalemate that followed a six-month-long criminal trial in Florida in 2005 stemming from allegations that he acted as Palestinian Islamic Jihad's chief representative in America. A jury acquitted Al-Arian on some charges, but could not reach a verdict on others

Two federal appeals courts rejected Al-Arian's claims that his plea absolved him from having to testify in the investigations being pursued from Alexandria, Va. Al-Arian, who has been in jail since he was indicted in the Florida case in 2003, was scheduled to be released and deported last year, but a judge extended Al-Arian's sentence while he was in civil contempt for refusing to testify...