Judge extends al-Arian contempt ruling

A federal judge extended a contempt ruling against a Palestinian convicted of supporting a terrorist group. Wednesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, who is based in Alexandria Va., will keep Sami al-Arian in jail until October for his refusal to cooperate with a federal investigation into what the government alleges was a conspiracy among Islamic charities and think tanks in northern Virginia to finance terrorist groups. Al-Arian says he has no information that would help the case, the Washington Post reported, but he nonetheless refuses to testify before a grand jury and has been held in contempt for six months. “My husband is a man of principle, and he will never turn into an informant,” his wife Nahla told the Post. “We admire him and are proud of him. In our culture, as Palestinians, if a person becomes an informant for the government, this is very shameful.” In 2005, al-Arian avoided a retrial by confessing to a single count of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad after a Florida jury acquitted him of nine counts and deadlocked on eight others. He was to have been released and deported this year, but the judge will be able to extend his detention up to another nine months if he fails to cooperate by October.