Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch
Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch
Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch
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<strong>to</strong> an at<strong>to</strong>rney, <strong>to</strong> view exculpa<strong>to</strong>ry evidence, and <strong>to</strong> know and be able <strong>to</strong> challenge the<br />
basis for arrest and detention.<br />
The misuse of the material witness law has been harmful for those who have been<br />
wrongly held and damaging <strong>to</strong> the law itself. Innocent people have become the hapless<br />
victims of the government’s zeal, because neither the Justice Department nor the courts<br />
have honored the letter and spirit of the material witness rules that protect everyone’s<br />
right <strong>to</strong> freedom. In evading the requirement of probable cause of criminal conduct, the<br />
government bypassed checks on the reasonableness of its suspicion. As a result, men<br />
were imprisoned who had little or no information about, much less links, <strong>to</strong> terrorism.<br />
The Justice Department claimed each of the post-September 11 material witnesses had<br />
information relevant <strong>to</strong> grand jury terrorism investigations or <strong>to</strong> the trials of defendants<br />
alleged <strong>to</strong> support terrorist organizations. Yet at least thirty witnesses we know about<br />
were never brought before a grand jury or court <strong>to</strong> testify. Although our research<br />
suggests federal authorities suspected most if not all of the witnesses of terrorist-related<br />
conduct, only seven were ever arrested on terrorism-related charges.<br />
The material witness law has been twisted beyond recognition. Procedures designed for<br />
the temporary detention of witnesses who might otherwise skip <strong>to</strong>wn have been misused<br />
<strong>to</strong> hold men who were in fact criminal suspects. Holding as “witnesses” people who are<br />
in fact suspects sets a disturbing precedent for future use of this extraordinary<br />
government power <strong>to</strong> deprive citizens and others of their liberty. The rule of law itself<br />
suffers when a law is used as a pretext <strong>to</strong> sidestep longstanding checks on the arbitrary<br />
exercise of executive power.<br />
The Justice Department has tried <strong>to</strong> hide its use of the material witness law, refusing <strong>to</strong><br />
respond <strong>to</strong> congressional inquiries and keeping courtroom doors closed, records sealed,<br />
and material witness cases off court dockets. Nevertheless, through a year of intensive<br />
research, <strong>Human</strong> <strong>Rights</strong> <strong>Watch</strong> and the American Civil Liberties Union (HRW/ACLU)<br />
have been able <strong>to</strong> identify seventy men whom the department has arrested as material<br />
witnesses in connection with its anti-terrorism investigations. We do not know how<br />
many others there have been. U.S. citizenship was no bar <strong>to</strong> the misuse of the material<br />
witness law: at least one-quarter of the known material witnesses are U.S. citizens.<br />
Many of the seventy material witnesses we have identified suffered imprisonment<br />
because federal investiga<strong>to</strong>rs and at<strong>to</strong>rneys relied on false, flimsy, or irrelevant<br />
information and jumped <strong>to</strong> the wrong conclusions. Their judgment about evidence also<br />
appears <strong>to</strong> have been colored by ignorance about and perhaps even prejudice. Not only<br />
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G) 2