In his suit, Loftus claims that "client confidential sources" had told him that "the intelligence service of a friendly country alleged that they had wiretapped the Damascus, Syria, headquarters of the Islamic Jihad... and inadvertently intercepted a telephone conversation from an unknown person in Tampa, Florida."

In the alleged conversation, the caller from Tampa screams at a senior Islamic Jihad official about Hamas taking credit for a terrorist attack committed by Islamic Jihad, complaining that it would hinder his fundraising efforts in the United States for the group. Worried about the possible existence of an Islamic Jihad cell operated by a person with such stature, the friendly country shared the intercept with American intelligence and asked for assistance in identifying the Tampa caller, according to Loftus's suit. The caller turned out to be Al-Arian, the lawsuit claims.

The discovery prompted the United States to move against Al-Arian, examining his bank records and obtaining secret warrants through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to wiretap him, the suit contended.

According to the federal indictment, the FBI began bugging Al-Arian's phone and fax line in January 1994. The FBI raided his home and office in 1995 and continued to closely monitor him and his associates. However, the government was unable to bring charges against him because of restrictions in the use of intelligence information in criminal cases. The Associated Press reported this week that Al-Arian visited the White House as part of a 160-person group from the American Muslim Council in June 2001, where the group was briefed on President Bush's faith-based agenda and other issues by Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser. (Please see separate story.)

The main obstacle to indicting Al-Arian, observers said, was that most of the material against him precedes the enactment of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that barred material support to foreign terrorist groups listed by the State Department. Islamic Jihad was designated as a foreign terrorist group in October 1997.

The indictment indicates that most of the evidence stems from 1994 and the first half of 1995, when the FBI wiretaps went unnoticed. Following the FBI raids in November 1995, Al-Arian apparently stopped his allegedly incriminating conversations on the phone, using more cryptic references to Islamic Jihad support activities.

However, since the enactment of the Patriot Act last year and the court ruling, such evidence can now be used to build criminal indictments -- to the dismay of civil liberties activists. Government officials note that this is precisely why they issued the indictment now.

Levitt, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the evidence was so overwhelming that the issues of free speech and of the use of secret evidence raised by Al-Arian supporters are moot.

"The government has decided to declassify a lot of intelligence and there is no shortage of it in this case," he added. Article copyright Forward Newspaper, L.L.C.

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