"The FBI Is On My Trail"

March 11, 2004

http://www.weeklyplanet.com/2004-03-11/cover.html

Double Standard

The FBI wants to question Sugg about lies Sami Al-Arian allegedly
told. But what about the lies, distortions and omissions from Al-
Arian's enemies, including the government and the Tampa Tribune?

BY JOHN SUGG

You're all over the wiretaps," said the FBI agent who called me in
mid-February. "We want to talk to you."

This was not the sort of phone call a journalist wants to receive.
The case in question is that of fired University of South Florida
professor (and accused terrorist mastermind) Sami Al-Arian.

The FBI agent spiced his appeal with the comment, "We don't want to
jam you, but . ." I'm not quite sure of his meaning. I guess it
could be interpreted as: They don't let us beat reluctant witnesses with
rubber hoses any longer, but . .

I'd say it was an implied (although mild) bit of coercion.

No doubt I'm all over the wiretap, I observed to the agent, Kerry
Myers, a nice guy, a good cop with whom I've dealt in the past. After
all, I have covered the government's relentless pursuit of Al-Arian
for eight years and have talked to him, I'm sure, many hundreds of
times. I'm writing a book, and I've spent endless hours learning
about Islam, the arcane nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,
the histories of the groups in the region, the personalities. A lot
of that process involves Al-Arian. I confess: I even once played
horseshoes with Al-Arian in an effort to engage him in conversation.

I asked Myers why he wanted to talk to me.

He recited (apparently in violation of a gag order issued at federal
prosecutors' own request) some dialogue from the wiretaps, in which I
discuss with Al-Arian what a government source had told me in the
late 1990s about the federal agent who originally was chasing the USF
Muslims. The source had said the agent, Barry Carmody, had a
debilitating disease and was trying to make a bigger deal of the case
than it was so that he could stay on the FBI payroll.

That corresponded with what a top federal prosecutor in Tampa had
said to me -- that the facts didn't merit an indictment. And with
what the FBI's national counterterrorism chief, Bob Blitzer, had
commented to me -- that Al-Arian and his associates had broken no
federal laws.

But I never printed this theory about Carmody because I knew the
source, a now retired federal official, intensely disliked and
distrusted Carmody. Now, however, I asked Myers if Carmody had really
been ill, and he acknowledged that he had.

"We want to know your sources," he said. "Which agent told you about"
Carmody? "Who are your sources" in the Justice Department and the
FBI?

He can't be serious, I mused.

It occurred to me while talking to Myers that the top federal lawman
in Tampa, U.S. Attorney Paul Perez, had gotten some bad news only a
day or so before. Perez didn't get a federal judgeship -- and my
sources had told me he had thought he would. Moreover, he did not
even get the courtesy of an interview from the judicial selection
committee. Quite a slap.

Why?

I may have played a minor role.

I've written that working in Perez's office is a prosecutor, Bob
O'Neill, who owns a Hyde Park bar that for years has been raising
money for Ireland's Sinn Fein and its very, very, very terrorist arm,
the Irish Republican Army. The IRA has killed several times the
number of innocent civilians than the group Al-Arian is accused of
supporting, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. O'Neill's partner is
unabashed in his support of the IRA.

It certainly points to hypocrisy inherent in the government's case --
that it prosecutes Al-Arian, holding the professor under despicably
inhumane conditions in an attempt to break him, while one of the
prosecutors is indisputably indulging in activities very similar to
those alleged against the Muslims.

More important, my disclosures on O'Neill are the foundation for one
of at least three complaints against Perez filed with the Justice
Department in Washington. Investigators from Washington have been
rolling into Tampa asking tough questions of Perez, so my sources
say. Not hard to figure out why Perez's judicial quest merited only a
rebuff.

Would Perez be so vindictive as to unleash the FBI on me?

Another complaint against his office came from state Circuit Court
Judge Greg Holder, who claims the U.S. Attorney's Office scuttled an
investigation of courthouse corruption.

(Perez, appointed in early 2002, would be one of a succession of law
enforcement officials in Tampa who, curiously, don't want to take on
the powerfully corrupt, or corruptly powerful, judicial
establishment.)

In 2001, as Holder was beginning to get uneasy about how seriously
the U.S. Attorney's Office was chasing the courthouse mob -- and as
he was making his discontent known, a document was slipped under a
federal prosecutor's door. That paper purported to show that Holder
had plagiarized a research assignment needed to get a promotion in
the Air Force Reserve.

The U.S. Attorney's Office did nothing with the paper for a year --
until Holder turned his unease into a formal complaint with the
Justice Department, asserting that Tampa's federal prosecutors had
squelched the courthouse probe. Then, the allegedly plagiarized paper
was sent to the Air Force, and Holder's life has been hell ever
since.

The Air Force first suspended Holder from duties as a military judge,
then reinstated him. The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission
instituted action that could result in Holder losing his job -- a
hearing is pending. The JQC's case is circumstantial, and most of the
evidence so far has tended to vindicate Holder.

Interestingly, Perez won't let any of his minions involved in the
apparent smear job testify, nor will he open his files. His survival
may well depend on keeping the lid on his office's actions.

But Perez and the feds have friends -- notably at The Tampa Tribune,
which among other omissions has never reported that the U.S. Attorney
was dissed in his attempt to become a federal judge. Nor has the
daily ever reported on the substance of the complaints against
Perez's office -- notably the one relating to O'Neill's involvement
with Sinn Fein/IRA.

More important, when the agents need someone to carry water for them,
they know whom to call -- the Trib. It's the quo following years of
quid from the feds.

On Feb. 22, the Trib printed a curious story. It had retained
three "experts" to review the Holder case, and these people had
concluded the judge was likely guilty. That conclusion was based on,
as the daily recounted, "Occam's Razor" -- a medieval philosopher's
notion that the simplest solution that addresses all of the facts is
likely correct.

The secret to getting a close shave by Occam is to control the facts.
Here's what the Trib didn't tell you.

First, it tried to brush aside the importance of who leaked the
allegedly plagiarized document. "It might not be relevant," the
newspaper said, suggesting that the deed-doer was a
commendable "whistleblower" rather than a "conspirator."

Did you get that? The identity of the person who slipped the knife
between Holder's ribs isn't "relevant." This from a newspaper that
once prided itself on uncovering real news.

More precisely, the Trib doesn't want readers heading in that
direction. Any conspiracy hinted at by the paper is limited to the
courthouse crowd. The Trib isn't about to consider that its friends,
the federal prosecutors, might have a reason to "get" Holder.

The bulk of the Trib's article claims that it would have been all but
impossible for the cigar-chomping, ass-grabbing judges around the
courthouse to have produced so perfect a fabrication as the allegedly
plagiarized paper.

True. But who did have motive and the technical capability to frog up
the document? Who had the knowledge of how, and the opportunity, to
get it to an out-of-the-loop member of Perez's own staff (thereby
creating a Mafia-style gap in knowledge of the act)? Hmmm. Maybe
someone doing Perez's bidding?

Second, the key "expert" is recently retired FBI agent Joe Navarro.
The newspaper tells you some of his credentials -- but not the most
interesting fact. For years, Navarro has been one of the team chasing
Al-Arian. And, the feds have been furiously leaking their spin on the
Palestinian professor through their media allies at the Trib. Indeed,
the newspaper's terrorism Svengali, Steve Emerson, knew about Al-
Arian's indictment long before Al-Arian did -- and that information
could only have originated from the feds.

(Navarro until he retired was partners with Myers, the agent who
wants to know my sources. If these guys really are interested in
which Justice employees are passing info to scribes, they might start
asking the folks at the Trib. But, then, they already know the
answers.)

Third, the Trib makes much of the fact that an initial Air Force
investigator, David Leta, felt Holder was guilty. What the daily
doesn't say is that Leta, when not an Air Force reservist, is an
assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta with close ties to his brethren in
Tampa. It's a clear conflict of interest, not that the Trib would
clue you in.

So, with Holder, it seems like Perez may have indulged in
retaliation, aided and abetted (as the lawmen say) by the Trib. His
refusal to open his office to scrutiny underscores that suspicion.

Quite frankly, the Justice Department should demand transparency
about complaints against Perez -- if the feds want people to have
faith in the justice system. And if there is substance -- especially
if it turns out Holder was a victim of dirty tricks -- then Perez
should be fired.

The Planet's attorney, Dave Snyder, responded to the government that,
no, I wouldn't be revealing sources.Snyder also pointed out to the
feds that they haven't complied with any of their own rules about
questioning reporters, beginning with the necessity to have the
personal approval of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Al-Arian's chief prosecutor, Terry Zitek, apparently realizing that
Myers had strayed from the reservation and was inviting sanctions for
revealing contents of the wiretap, tried what looked like damage
control. Zitek wrote Snyder that the government wasn't primarily
interested in my sources (but he didn't preclude asking me about them
once they started the third degree).

Zitek said, "The principal purpose of the requested interview is to
determine whether Mr. Sugg has any relevant information ." about
Paragraph 42 of Al-Arian's indictment.

That paragraph states that the Muslims "did make false statements and
misrepresent facts to representatives of the media to promote the
goals of the" Islamic Jihad.

I'm more inclined to believe Myers as to the reason for his call, but
here's the context of Zitek's statement:

Al-Arian has filed a motion to dismiss charges against him based
mainly on the contention that what the government is really doing is
attacking the First Amendment by criminalizing speech that advocates
for the Palestinian cause.

"The indictment characterizes one side of [the Middle East conflict]
as good and the other side as evil," Bill Moffitt, Al-Arian's
attorney, wrote in his motion. "While the indictment tracks the death
of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians, it never references the
deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis. The indictment's
historical oversights provide a framework by which the U.S. attempts
to criminalize legitimate political expression. It is clear that the
express purpose of the indictment is to chill any and all support for
the Palestinian cause and any additional advocacy in favor of the
rights of Arabs."

That, of course, is what has been going on ever since faux journalist
(and very real disinformation mouthpiece for Israel's extreme right
Likud party) Steve Emerson slithered into town and found a rock to
hide under at the Trib.

Moffitt contends that the Palestinian groups have never targeted
America. They may be a threat to Israel, but they're not our problem,
he says.

More to the point, for most of the time Al-Arian is alleged to have
been connected to the Islamic Jihad, it would have been perfectly
legal activity in the United States.

After years of screeching from Emerson and the Tribune, the feds
couldn't make a case -- but they did pour lots of corrosive innuendo
on the Bill of Rights. That changed only when the Bush regime managed
to find a way to circumvent the Constitution and use foreign
intelligence wiretaps, and after Israel provided what it claimed to
be "intelligence." (It might be instructive to remember that a motto
of Israel's crack Mossad spy agency is: By way of deception, thou
shalt do war. And to remember other recent episodes of
foreign "intelligence" that didn't stand up in the light of day.)

Where no indictment had been possible before, it now was, or at least
that's what the government wants us to believe.

The wiretaps, according to my Justice sources, are going to be very
problematic for the government. (It wouldn't be the first time.
Remember the Aisenberg tapes? That's another one of agent Myers'
cases. Hell, the government is in such a sorry state this time that
it's been forced to ask for Al-Arian's help in translating Arabic
faxes. The scholar's attorney responded, tongue in cheek, by asking
if the government was willing to pay for the services.)

And Israel, which has long sought to eradicate any Arab voice in
America, has refused to allow scrutiny of its "intelligence,"
prompting Moffitt to demand of the prosecutors whether things have
gotten so bad that we're allowing a foreign power to dictate criminal
proceedings in our courts.

What Zitek really wanted was something to shoot down Moffitt's motion
to dismiss. (Several weeks later, Myers approached at least two other
reporters to question them about their conversations with Al-Arian.
One of them is Planet editor Jim Harper, who covered the story for
the St. Petersburg Times in the mid '90s. Now following Zitek's lead,
Myers told Harper he was gathering information to support Paragraph
42 in the indictment. Harper, like any independent-minded journalist,
declined to become a witness for the prosecution, and the Times has
promised to back him.)But here's my answer for all to see -- if
that's really the reason for the fed's inquiry:

There's nothing that I know that could prove the guilt or innocence
of Al-Arian and his co-defendants, and the government is aware of
that.

Al-Arian refrained from answering some (but not many) questions that
I have put to him over the years. I didn't like that, but considering
that Al-Arian has been a target of the Emerson-inspired government
crusade for almost a decade, I can understand his reluctance to be
absolutely forthcoming.

I had specifically asked Al-Arian about his role, if any, with the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He explained -- and his account is
consistent with academics and independent intelligence experts who
have studied the Palestinian movements -- that the "religious
opposition" to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization had
spawned both political and militant branches. Similarly, Zionism has
boasted eloquent advocates for peace -- and it has produced terrorist
outfits such as the Stern Gang, Irgun, the Unit 101 death squad (of
which Ariel Sharon was a member), and in the United States, the
groups associated with Meir Kahane.

Al-Arian clearly has political affinity with the "religious
opposition" groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad (as is his
First Amendment right). He has stated emphatically that while
supporting the right of his people to oppose the occupation, he
opposes killing innocent civilians.

While Al-Arian has stated opinions with which I disagree, sometimes
vehemently, I have never caught him in a factual lie or intentional
deception.

On the other hand, if Zitek and the government really want to
prosecute someone for misleading the media and the public, why don't
they start with Emerson, his sidekicks and some of their own agents?

The government, in the early years of this case, repeatedly leaked
incendiary "facts" that turned out to be bogus. For example, they
used the Tribune to broadcast that documents on MacDill Air Force
Base had been found among Al-Arian's files -- implying that he had
some dastardly, perhaps lethal, purpose. The truth was that Al-Arian
had twice, by invitation, addressed conferences at Central Command,
and the documents were the handout materials from those events. (The
Trib's reporter, revealing his non-journalism motives, told me it
wasn't his job to question what those documents really were. Which
meant, he saw his job as merely furthering the feds' spin.)

Or, at a 2000 deportation hearing for Al-Arian's brother-in-law,
Mazen Al-Najjar, it became painfully clear that government agent Bill
West repeatedly misrepresented facts (or exhibited extraordinary
ignorance) under oath. For example, he said that all of the "martyrs"
in the Palestinians' uprising in the late 1980s and early 1990s were
suicide bombers. The truth: None were.

The media were at the hearing. Maybe West misled them.

With Emerson, there's a wealth of calumnies. As Harper reported in
the Times, Emerson told the St. Petersburg Tiger Bay Club in February
1996 that Palestinian advocates at USF were involved in the 1993
World Trade Center bombing. Emerson promised proof "in the near
term." The proof never came, and the Justice Department said it had
no records supporting the allegation.

And, if misleading reporters merits a criminal investigation,
consider that Associated Press reporters gave Emerson the heave-ho in
a 1997 series on terrorism after they came to doubt the origin of
material he gave them. Emerson responded with an eight-page rant to
AP. In it, Emerson alleged that a wire service editor (and former
Times scribe), Bob Port, had provided him with inside information
about AP, specifically that another editor had a "vendetta" against
Emerson.

Last September, Port wrote, in response to questions from me, "I
never told Mr. Emerson that anyone at the AP had a vendetta against
him, nor did any vendetta exist."

Port has a lot better reputation for truth-telling than does Emerson.

Emerson's researcher -- until a rupture two years ago -- was the
truly weird Rita Katz, who claimed in her book Terrorist Hunter that
federal agents were bowled over by her sexual appeal. She also wrote
that an individual left Tampa the "next day" after a leader of the
Islamic Jihad was assassinated. The truth is that he left almost a
half-year before then, but Katz's deception puts a far more sinister
cast on events in Tampa. At the very least, it arguably was intended
to mislead the public -- and the press.

So, Mr. Zitek, bust Katz's butt, and Emerson's, and your own agents',
if fibbing to the media is suddenly a crime.

======

John Sugg, former editor of and frequent contributor to the Weekly
Planet, last year won a lawsuit that Steve Emerson filed against him
and the Planet. After four years, Emerson was unable to produce proof
of his allegations and dropped the suit. Sugg is now senior editor of
our sister paper in Atlanta. He can be reached at 404-614-1241 or at
john.sugg@cln.com.

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