Sami Al-Hussayen on his way home

BOISE – Sami Al-Hussayen headed home to Saudi Arabia early Wednesday morning, after 17 months in Idaho jails – though he never was convicted of any crime.

The former University of Idaho graduate student was cleared of terrorism charges and three immigration charges in June, but the jury deadlocked on eight more immigration charges. Three weeks ago, Al-Hussayen agreed to drop his appeal of a separate deportation order, in exchange for the government dropping the remaining immigration charges and deporting him to his home country right away.

Al-Hussayen, 34, left the Canyon County jail at 3:36 a.m. on Wednesday. He was headed back to his wife and three young sons, who left the country months ago rather than face deportation themselves.

“The only reason we agreed to deportation was to get him out of the country right away, or we would have defended that and won that too,” said Al-Hussayen’s attorney, David Nevin.

Federal prosecutors said in court papers that they could have convicted Al-Hussayen in a retrial on the remaining immigration charges, but opted not to because any penalty likely would be less than the time the computer science student already had spent in jail.

“No matter what the verdict, the end result would likely be the same – he would be deported,” U.S. Attorney for Idaho Tom Moss said last month.

Nevin said he was confident the student could have won his appeal of the deportation order and cleared his name completely. But, he said, “It was really time for Sami to be reunited with his family and get on with the rest of his life. He just told me that he wants to go home.”

Since that June 30 agreement between Al-Hussayen and federal prosecutors, the student was turned back over to the custody of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the division of the Department of Homeland Security that handles immigration. That meant a transfer from the Ada County Jail to the Canyon County Jail, where the immigration agency has a contract. There, Al-Hussayen was held in an isolation cell, locked down 23 hours a day. Officials said that was the only way he could be held separately from regular jail inmates.

Al-Hussayen waited there three weeks before his sudden departure in the middle of the night.

“Before we can remove an individual, we need to make arrangements, obtain travel documents, make transportation arrangements, ensure that appropriate security measures are in place,” said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Both Kice and acting deputy field office director Rita Nixon in Missoula said they couldn’t confirm or deny that Al-Hussayen had been sent home, in keeping with a policy not to acknowledge such movements until the person has been safely returned to his or her home country.

Nevin confirmed that Al-Hussayen was en route, “but they won’t provide me with information about his expected time of arrival.”

The terrorism case against Al-Hussayen charged that he aided international terrorists by operating Web sites and funneling donations to the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Islamic Assembly of North America, though that group hasn’t been charged. The immigration charges said the student’s volunteer work for the Islamic group violated his student visa, which allowed him in the country “solely” to study.

Al-Hussayen was the first person charged with aiding terrorists by operating Web sites, under a revision to material-support laws that came under the post-Sept. 11 USA Patriot Act. He also was the first to be charged with visa fraud for not “solely” studying.

In a separate proceeding in the spring of 2003, Immigration Judge Anna Ho ordered Al-Hussayen deported after he refused to answer questions about his involvement with the Islamic group prior to his criminal trial. On the advice of his attorneys, Al-Hussayen cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

“Since the respondent chose not to speak, I have no alternative but to issue a decision based on the government’s evidence,” Ho declared after a two-hour Boise hearing.

Al-Hussayen’s attorneys had filed a motion to delay the immigration proceeding until after the criminal trial, but the judge denied it.

Ho’s decisions, Nevin said, “forced him to go to hearing at a time when he had serious felony charges pending. If we’d been able to tell the whole story at the deportation hearing, he wouldn’t have been deported.”

Ho cited two checks that the government submitted into evidence, totaling $319.70. The checks, made out to Al-Hussayen by Lee Wa Al-Hijrah of Ann Arbor, Mich., both contained the notation, “Web designing cost.” A government witness said the money apparently was related to the set-up of the Heejrah.com Web site, which was registered by Al-Hussayen and offered sales of educational materials about Islam.

Ho ruled that the two checks showed that Al-Hussayen had outside employment, which was prohibited by his student visa, and that he lied on his visa applications about coming to the United States solely to study.

Nevin noted that other records the government submitted into evidence showed that Al-Hussayen paid registration and Web-hosting fees for the Web site, including a $25 set-up fee and a $19.95 recurring monthly fee.

The checks could have been for those fees, rather than wages, he said at the immigration hearing.

On Wednesday, Nevin likened the immigration hearing to a “kangaroo court,” saying, “they had the (deportation) papers already drafted.”

During Al-Hussayen’s eight-week criminal trial, the government called witnesses and presented exhaustive testimony about Web sites linked to Al-Hussayen and the IANA that contained or linked to extremist articles, lectures or videos.

Prosecutors charged that the sites helped terrorists raise funds and drum up recruits, but jurors said the evidence didn’t support that.

The defense called only one witness, a former CIA official who said the sites linked to the student appeared to be analytical and religious in nature, and not terrorist tools.

Prior to his arrest, Al-Hussayen, son of a retired government education minister in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent spokesman for Moscow, Idaho’s Muslim community, and served as president of the university’s Muslim Students Association.

He was just months away from earning his doctorate in computer science at the University of Idaho when he was arrested in February 2003.