Former USF professor was terrorist group crime boss, prosecutor says

TAMPA -- A former college professor acted for years as one of the top "crime bosses" for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an organized, murderous gang that operates much like the Mafia, a federal prosecutor told a jury Monday.

Although Sami Al-Arian and three co-defendants standing trial here the past five months are not charged with directly killing anyone, they conspired to facilitate terrorist attacks and are every bit as guilty under federal law as the suicide bombers and others who carried them out, prosecutor Cherie Krigsman said in her closing arguments.

"The men of the PIJ you got to know in this case, they didn't strap bombs to their body," she said. "They leave that to somebody else."

Al-Arian, 47, and his co-defendants are charged in a 51-count indictment with raising money in the United States and directing the mission of the PIJ, a U.S. State Department-designated terrorist group that killed hundreds in attacks in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.