Handing the government a stinging defeat in its war on terror, a jury acquitted a Saudi graduate student Thursday of charges he used his computer expertise to help Muslim terrorists raise money and recruit followers. “I hope the message is that the First Amendment is important and meaningful in this country,” said David Nevin, defense attorney for Sami Omar Al-Hussayen. The case against Al-Hussayen, a 34-year-old Ph.D. candidate in computer science student at the University of Idaho, was seen as an important test of a provision of the Patriot Act that makes it a crime to provide expert advice or assistance to terrorists. Al-Hussayen set up and ran Web sites that prosecutors said were used to recruit terrorists, raise money and disseminate inflammatory rhetoric. They said the sites included religious edicts justifying suicide bombings and an invitation to contribute financially to the militant Palestinian organization Hamas. Full Story
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