The former USF professor's civil liberties group received $10,000 from a group linked to terrorism, a statement from a U.S. Customs Service agent says.

WASHINGTON - Sami Al-Arian founded the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace in 1997 to protest the government's antiterrorism strategies. Now, it turns out, his civil liberties activism may have been funded by a Saudi-backed charity that itself is linked to terrorism, a newly released affidavit says.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought donated $10,000 to the coalition on Nov. 1, 2001 - just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the affidavit.

The sworn statement by U.S. Customs Service agent David Kane was used to obtain search warrants from a federal judge for a March 2002 raid of a web of Saudi-linked charities and businesses in Hernon, Va., that are suspected of funneling cash to Islamic extremists - including, allegedly, Al-Arian. A federal judge in Virginia unsealed a heavily redacted version of the affidavit this week at the government's request.

Al-Arian has been jailed since February on charges he was the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group responsible for more than 100 deaths by suicide bombings and other violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories. A trial is slated for 2005.

The affidavit also describes previously reported information about Al-Arian's alleged operations in Tampa, where federal prosecutors say he helped run the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group from his perch as a tenured professor at the University of South Florida.

In a 1995 raid of Al-Arian's home and office, a draft of the group's constitution was found on his computer, the document says. It also describes a plan apparently written or edited by Al-Arian to infiltrate U.S. government organizations to collect intelligence for group leaders and conduct disinformation campaigns.

Al-Arian formed the Tampa Bay coalition in 1997 to protest the government's use of classified evidence to imprison his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, while Al-Najjar appealed a deportation order. The Justice Department said the intelligence information showed Al-Najjar to be a national security threat, but Al-Arian - often speaking at rallies organized by the Tampa Bay coalition - argued that Al-Najjar's constitutional right to see the evidence against him was being violated.

Later, when USF president Judy Genshaft tried to fire Al-Arian for his alleged terrorist ties, the coalition denounced the action as a violation of academic freedom and issued statements saying Al-Arian was being punished for his pro-Palestinian views.

According to the affidavit, the $10,000 check from the nonprofit International Institute of Islamic Thought to Al-Arian's coalition was signed by Ahmad Totonji, an Iraqi-born citizen of Saudi Arabia and an officer of the institute.

In the early 1990s, the institute was a major funder of the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, a USF-affiliated think tank founded by Al-Arian that prosecutors allege was a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The institute is one of some two dozen organizations and homes raided in March 2002 in connection with the terror financing probe. Prosecutors are looking at whether the network, connected to the wealthy Al-Rajhi family of Saudi Arabia, funneled money to extremists.

Donna Sheinbach, an attorney for Totonji, declined to discuss the affidavit Thursday. Al-Arian, who is acting as his own attorney, is being held in solitary confinement at the Coleman Correctional Facility in Sumter County, where he could not be reached for comment.

The issue of Saudi charities and their possible links to terrorism has been prominent recently. President Bush has declined to declassify a 28-page section of a congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks, saying public release of the information could harm ongoing investigations into Saudi Arabian charities' links to terrorism.

In the February indictment against Al-Arian and seven others, Al-Najjar was described as an unindicted co-conspirator. Al-Najjar was deported last year to Lebanon.

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Original St. Petersburg Times article