Jailed former professor ends hunger strike in Va. jail

Carolyn Hileman - The Voice* | April 30, 2008

By LARRY O’DELL – 1 hour ago

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A former professor who pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group but has refused to testify in a related investigation has ended a nearly two-month hunger strike, his supporters said Wednesday.

Sami al-Arian, 50, suspended his fast Tuesday after 57 days. The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace says family and friends urged the former University of South Florida computer science professor to resume eating after he collapsed last week in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail because of low blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

Attorneys for al-Arian also encouraged him to resume eating so federal authorities could not cite the hunger strike as a reason to further delay his deportation to the Middle East.

“He had lost almost 40 pounds and was experiencing serious physical consequences from the hunger strike,” al-Arian’s lawyer, Jonathan Turley, said in a telephone interview. “The government indicated that it would not be able to deport him in his current chronic medical condition.”

Al-Arian has completed his nearly five-year prison term but remains in custody because of his refusal to testify before a grand jury investigating Muslim charities and businesses. Turley said that al-Arian should have been deported a year ago, but that the government “stopped the clock with a series of contempt citations.”