...The deal, which Moffitt said has been under discussion "for a number of months," is the culmination of an investigation that dates to 1993, when the government began to secretly wiretap telephone calls and faxes from the charismatic computer science professor.

During a five-month trial, prosecutors cast Al-Arian as the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an organization that has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Israel and its occupied territories. The government presented evidence that Al-Arian was, at one time, a member of the group's governing body.

Although Al-Arian was never accused of direct involvement in violence, the prosecution said he led a cell that helped fund and operate the Islamic Jihad.

Moffitt conceded during the trial that the evidence showed Al-Arian was part of the organization in the early 1990s, before support for the group became illegal. He said any involvement Al-Arian might have had in the group was political and separate from its campaign of violence...

...Whatever can be said about al-Arian can also be said about IIIT—and that’s in the words of the group’s co-founder, al-Alwani, who once wrote that al-Arian was “a part of us and an extension of us.”

Not in question because of wiretaps and phone and fax intercepts is that al-Arian had an intimate relationship with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Also not in dispute is that al-Arian mocked an executive order designating PIJ a terrorist entity just weeks after it was signed by President Clinton, calling it the result of “a war staged by Zionists.” The setting was an intercepted phone conversation with Lou’ay Safi, then the research director IIIT.

Also uncontested is that al-Arian played host to some of the world’s most notorious Islamic terrorists. The Islamic Conference of Palestine (ICP), founded by the former USF professor, held annual conferences that played host to what the Tampa Tribune dubbed a “militant all-star team”: PIJ founder and spiritual leader Abdel Aziz-Odeh, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers), leading Hamas official Mohammed Sakr, and high-ranking Sudanese terrorist Hassan Turabi.

It was during this time that IIIT reportedly provided the lion’s share of funding for ICP and its sister organization, World and Islam Enterprise (WISE). According to an FBI affidavit, al-Alwani admitted to attending and speaking at various ICP conferences.

Not only did none of the Islamic terrorists in his presence apparently shock him, but al-Alwani probably felt quite at home. In that same affidavit, the FBI reveals that al-Alwani wrote a fatwa “at some point between December 1988 and November 1989” that said, “Jihad is the only way to liberate Palestine. …[N]o person or authority may settle the Jews on the land of Palestine or cede to them any part thereof.”

Striking a similar theme, al-Arian called for “true armed jihad against the enemy in Israel” during his speech at a 1990 ICP conference. At an ICP conference in Cleveland the following year, he set his violent sites on the United States: “Let us damn America. Let us damn Israel. Let us damn their allies until death.”

Even though most of al-Arian’s fiery speeches were caught on camera, many groups and prominent individuals lined up to support him. One such defender was Prof. Esposito, the other keynote speaker at last month’s IIIT conference. When USF moved to fire al-Arian in 2002, Prof. Esposito wrote a letter to the university’s president stating that he was he was “stunned, astonished, and saddened” because the man who—without a doubt—gave many jihadist speeches was a “consummate professional.”

This was not the first unambiguous jihadist to be defended by Esposito, who has a long history of apologizing for Islamic terror. He co-edited a book in 2000 with Azzam Tamimi, who stated unequivocally in an interview with a Spanish newspaper in November 2001, “I support Hamas.” In the same interview, he also said, “I admire the Taliban; they are courageous.”...