Foreigners are shackled, then jailed and denied their rights in FBI crackdown War on Terrorism: Investigation By Andrew Gumbel in Washington 02 November 2001
Golden Gate bridge is threatened, says Governor
Foreigners are shackled, then jailed and denied their rights in FBI crackdown
When the FBI came for Al-Badr al-Hazmi in the early hours of 12 September at his home in San Antonio, Texas, it thought that it had hit the jackpot in its burgeoning anti-terror investigation.
The softly spoken Saudi radiologist had booked five tickets on a flight from San Antonio to San Diego through the online service Travelocity - a pattern of behaviour similar to the suicide hijackers who struck New York and Washington the day before.
San Antonio appeared to be a jumping-off point for two other suspects taken into custody after they were caught with box-cutters and large amounts of cash on an Amtrak train, suggesting that Dr al-Hazmi might have been part of a local terrorist cell. He also had a history of large money transfers from the Middle East. And, most promising of all, he shared a surname with two of the men who perished in the 11 September onslaught.
The trouble was, none of it added up to anything. Al-Hazmi is one of the most common names in Saudi Arabia. The plane tickets were for Dr al-Hazmi and his family to attend a medical conference. He had never heard of Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the 11 September attacks, or the two men arrested on the train. And the big money transfer was funding for Dr al-Hazmi's medical residency at the University of Texas Health Science Centre.
A simple misunderstanding, one might think, but the story turned out to be far from simple. Dr al-Hazmi was taken into custody, shackled, flown to New York and held in solitary confinement in a Manhattan correction centre a short distance from the World Trade Centre. For six days he had no access to a lawyer, and his attorney in San Antonio said she was literally unable to find out where he was. For 12 days he had no opportunity to learn what the case against him was, or to answer it. When he did finally come face to face with FBI interrogators, it took less than 24 hours to clear his name and obtain his release.
He was one of the lucky ones. More than seven weeks after the attacks, the Justice Department says it has taken about 1,100 people into custody but almost nothing is known about who they are, why they have been detained, what charges, if any, have been filed, and how many of them have been cleared and released. One man has died in custody, in New Jersey, and others are being held indefinitely on immigration violations.
While about a dozen detainees appear to have some link to the terror attacks, almost nothing is known about the rest except that they are all foreigners. Court proceedings have been sealed in many cases, making it almost impossible to find out why they are in detention and what access they have had to lawyers and consular officials.
The veil of secrecy being maintained by the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has appalled civil liberties activists and is now starting to cause widespread concern among members of Congress.
Yesterday, a group of Democratic senators including Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to Mr Ashcroft asking him to release the names of those held and the reason for their detention. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, one of the signatories, said: "To offer no information on these people, why they are locked up and what access they have to lawyers doesn't seem consistent with any law or provision that I'm aware of." Senator Feingold is deeply concerned that innocent people might be held needlessly and in possible violation of the Bill of Rights.
His concern, and that of civil liberties groups, deepened this week after the passage of a new law granting the authorities broad powers to wiretap phones, track e-mail and examine financial and education records with minimal judicial oversight. It was rushed through Congress in record time, bypassing numerous committee hearings and raising further concerns that the "war on terrorism" is eroding the system of checks and balances at the heart of America's democratic system.
In the Senate, Mr Feingold was the only person to vote against Mr Ashcroft's Bill, arguing - against the grain - that this is not the time to give up on political debate and the very democratic values that define America. His stance has earned him considerable abuse, and accusations of disloyalty from his colleagues, but it has also prompted widespread support among his constituents and citizens across the political spectrum. "People don't want us to get carried away," he said in an interview yesterday. "They understand the system of checks and balances better than some members do. They want Congress to ask questions, not just give their approval like the Supreme Soviet."
Mr Feingold and his supporters do not take issue with the need to crack down on terrorism but they feel many of the law's provisions are open to easy abuse - in stifling political dissent, say - with no discernible benefit to public safety. In the light of cases like Dr al-Hazmi's, they worry that the new law will encourage the FBI and its sister agencies to be more incompetent, not less.
The scanty reports to have surfaced about detainees are not encouraging. Some are said to have been beaten - either by their guards or by fellow prisoners, with the guards looking on. In at least one case, a detainee appeared in court with fresh bruises clearly visible.
A Saudi Arabian student, Yazeed al-Salmi, reported that he spent 17 days in custody in San Diego, Oklahoma and New York despite being told early on that he was not a suspect. He said he was denied contact with his family, held in solitary confinement, prevented from washing or brushing his teeth and repeatedly humiliated by his guards. "They don't call you by name," he said of his time in Manhattan, "they call you 'f****** terrorist'."
In many cases, the immigration violations justifying the detentions have been so minor that in the past they would have been dealt with by exchange of letter. For example, Ali Maqtari, a Yemeni citizen married to an American was detained on 12 September on the grounds that there was a 10-day gap between the expiry of his tourist visa and the beginning of his marriage visa. He remains in custody in a Tennessee jail.
Dr al-Hazmi told The New York Times: "I would suggest that Americans don't rely on the FBI.''