Tampa ? If all goes as planned, Sami Al-Arian will soon leave behind his Tampa jail cell to be deported, ending a terrorism conspiracy case that began when federal agents began monitoring his phone calls in the early 1990s.

Al-Arian, 48, a former University of South Florida computer engineering professor, is expected to be sentenced this morning after pleading guilty April 14 to providing support to members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group responsible for hundreds of deaths in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Al-Arian took the plea deal despite a jury failing to convict him of any of the 17 charges against him after a six-month trial last year. His family said he agreed to the deal to get out of jail and end their suffering.

It was not immediately clear where Al-Arian would be sent. Born in Kuwait to Palestinian refugee parents, he was reared mostly in Egypt before coming to the United States 30 years ago. He has been jailed since his arrest in February 2003.

As part of the plea agreement, Al-Arian admitted to being associated with the PIJ from the late 1980s. Ramadan Shallah, a colleague at Al-Arian’s Palestinian think tank in Tampa, later emerged as the head of the PIJ in the Middle East.