Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

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Our research indicates that the government has to date arrested at least seventy material witnesses in connection with its post-September 11 counter-terrorism investigation. There may well be more. Recently released statistics from the Department of Justice confirm that between 2000 and 2002, the FBI increased the number of material witnesses it arrested by 80 percent. 37 The DOJ does not indicate, however, how many of the witnesses were held in connection with the post-September 11 counter-terrorism investigation. All of the seventy material witnesses HRW/ACLU identified in connection with this report were men. All but one was Muslim, by birth or conversion. All but two were of Middle Eastern, African, or South Asian descent, or African-American. Seventeen were U.S. citizens. The rest were nationals of Algeria, Canada, Djibouti, Egypt, France, India, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen. (See below for a chart of the breakdown of these nationalities as a percentage of the total identified material witnesses.) 18 16 Nationality of Material Witnesses Percentage of Total 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 United States Saudi Arabia Egypt Jordan Pakistan Yemen India Lebanon Algeria Canada Other Nationality About one-third of the material witnesses arrested in the post-September 11 counterterrorism investigation were living in the same towns in Oklahoma, California, 37 Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics 2000; Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics 2002, available online at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cfjs02.htm, last accessed on Sept. 1, 2004. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G) 16
Arizona, and Florida, where the nineteen September 11 hijackers and other terrorist suspects had lived or visited. These witnesses became suspect because they were believed to have worked, dined, or prayed at the same mosque with the suspected terrorists. The remaining material witnesses identified throughout this report were living throughout the country and came under suspicion for a variety of reasons: taking flight lessons, tips from neighbors, having news material on terrorist suspects, or even having a name similar to a suspect. III. Misuse of the Material Witness Law to Hold Suspects as Witnesses After September 11, then Attorney General John Ashcroft insisted the Justice Department “think outside the box” to combat terrorism. The Justice Department has adopted a “prevent first, prosecute second” strategy, which has included efforts to detain through whatever means possible people who might be connected to terrorist organizations. 38 Federal agents have swept through Muslim communities to pick up suspects often based on leads that, according to the Justice Department Inspector General’s subsequent report, “were often quite general in nature, such as a landlord reporting suspicious activity by an Arab tenant.” 39 Lacking in most cases sufficient evidence to obtain criminal arrest warrants, the Justice Department has used other means to secure these detentions. Whenever possible, the Justice Department has used routine immigration violations, such as working on a student visa, to detain Muslim men suspected of links to or knowledge about terrorism. 40 Through manipulation of procedure and abuse of its authority to use detention to carry out deportations, the Justice Department has held these “special interest” detainees until they have been “cleared” of ties to terrorism. 41 38 “Attorney General Ashcroft Outlines Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force,” Opening Remarks of John Ashcroft, September 24, 2001 (“Ashcroft Outlines Foreign Terrorist Tracking Force”). 39 U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (OIG), The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks, April 2003, p. 16 (DOJ, OIG, The September 11 Detainees). 40 According to Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine, when the FBI arrested people in sweeps on immigration violations, “[T]he FBI in New York City made little attempt to distinguish between aliens who were subjects of the FBI terrorism investigation (called “PENTTBOM”) and those encountered coincidentally … [E]ven in the chaotic aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the FBI should have expended more effort attempting to distinguish between aliens who it actually suspected of having a connection to terrorism from those aliens who, while possibly guilty of violating federal immigration law, had no connection to terrorism but simply were encountered in connection with a PENTTBOM lead.” Statement of Glenn A. Fine, inspector general, U.S. Department of Justice before the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security concerning Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, May 10, 2005. 41 Human Rights Watch, “Presumption of Guilt: Human Rights Abuses of Post-September11 Detainees,” Vol. 14, No. 4 (G), August 2002 (“Presumption of Guilt”). 17 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G)
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Page 3 and 4: Summary After I got in the cell I w
Page 5 and 6: were almost all the witnesses Musli
Page 7 and 8: combination with having worked in t
Page 9 and 10: Recommendations The recommendations
Page 11 and 12: o requiring the government to infor
Page 13 and 14: eflects a compromise between an ind
Page 15 and 16: the witness for immigration or prob
Page 17: those suspected of committing a cri
Page 21 and 22: testimony—you get fingerprints, y
Page 23 and 24: The FBI appeared to believe that Ma
Page 25 and 26: interrogating him, without counsel,
Page 27 and 28: Jose Padilla On May 8, 2002, the Ju
Page 29 and 30: The Justice Department has often st
Page 31 and 32: criticism on the conduct of Assista
Page 33 and 34: government failed to take Diab’s
Page 35 and 36: Eric Sears, a former federal prosec
Page 37 and 38: sentencing. The judge finally got a
Page 39 and 40: accompanied by extensive searches c
Page 41 and 42: and young children. 121 He was deta
Page 43 and 44: High Security Conditions of Detenti
Page 45 and 46: Harassment and Abuse in Jail Many m
Page 47 and 48: uised. See id. In the elevator, the
Page 49 and 50: In practice, then, court approval o
Page 51 and 52: I kept asking what am I being charg
Page 53 and 54: As Mark Foster, the lawyer for one
Page 55 and 56: Federal marshals transferred the ei
Page 57 and 58: [T]he government filed all their pa
Page 59 and 60: Federal agents have also refused to
Page 61 and 62: In many cases, the trauma of forcef
Page 63 and 64: In January 2002, another hotel gues
Page 65 and 66: abuse, international human rights 2
Page 67 and 68: It is not clear why the courts have
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Things go on behind those doors tha
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providing interviews, submitting to
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Detaining Witnesses Who Cooperate w
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stayed with the FBI agents for eigh
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government, “I’m not coming.”
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armed forces for several years and
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Congress included the deposition re
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X. Haste, Incompetence, Prejudice:
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government’s basis was weak. Thes
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target, 272 the state police ordere
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Khan and Azmath were deported in Ja
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told them I told them I had no idea
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y subletting their apartment. Altho
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The post-scripts to the stories of
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I could not ask questions. What’s
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Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammad Azmath A
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get all these kinds of questions—
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Human Rights Watch and the American
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Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

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