The prominent Palestinian activist and professor Sami Al-Arian has been deported from the United States. In one of the most controversial prosecutions of the post-9/11 era, Al-Arian was accused of ties to the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but a Florida jury failed to return a single guilty verdict on any of the 17 charges against him. After prosecutors refiled charges, Al-Arian chose jail time and deportation rather than face a second trial. For much of the three years following his arrest in 2003, Al-Arian was imprisoned in solitary confinement and reportedly abused by prison staff under conditions Amnesty International called “gratutiously punitive.” Wednesday night, Al-Arian told the news site The Intercept, “I came to the United States for freedom, but four decades later, I am leaving to gain my freedom.”