Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

More documents

Recommendations

Info

threat to national security. For example, when the government transported eight material witnesses from Evansville, Indiana, to a federal detention facility in Chicago, Illinois, they were accompanied by armed marshals and kept in shackles throughout the flight. According to one of the Evansville Eight, the government closed down the Chicago O’Hare airport for their arrival. A fleet of government cars then transported the material witnesses from O’Hare to the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center. 123 As one of the Evansville material witnesses described the experience: On the second morning we are taken to the Evansville airport. There are around three cars and many people. All the security guards had a gun. It becomes serious. Lots of guards surrounding us, no one can go in to the airport. We wait for a plane. Then a huge plane came. The first time a plane like that ever come in years—Evansville was just too small. The guards were guarding the airport. Six plus guards were guarding the airport. Two lines of people, behind me and in front of me—huge, huge people. Then we go to Chicago … We landed in the El Al [Israeli airline] terminal. All the people went out. After this we are put in the van. So many cars in front of us, and so many behind us. The guns were pointed out of the window, and the sirens were on. All the traffic was stopped. I think I’m dying. We’ll go somewhere and die. For what, for nothing? 124 The Justice Department’s use of aggressive tactics to arrest persons who were supposedly only material witnesses highlights the authorities’ real intentions. Subjecting material witnesses—a number of whom had already been providing information to the authorities—to abusive arrests using unnecessary force is a dubious tactic if the authorities truly want cooperative witnesses. Such arrests are more likely to serve only to alienate witnesses and their families. Whether as a security precaution or to procure confessions, the aggressive tactics the government has employed to arrest and detain material witnesses are another indication that the authorities really have considered the material witnesses to be criminal suspects. 123 Interview with Tarek Omar; HRW/ACLU interview with Tarek Albasti, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 16, 2004 (Interview with Tarek Albasti); HRW/ACLU interview with Adel Khalil, Evansville, Indiana, June 20, 2004 (Interview with Adel Khalil). 124 Interview with Adel Khalil. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G) 40
High Security Conditions of Detention The government held them like they were criminals. They treated them like thugs, threw them in high security as if they were felony convicts. They had to wear orange jump suits. There were in the cells 24 hours a day. They were not allowed to go anywhere unless they were chained at the waist. They were physically pushed up against the wall. Guards would step on their leg chains. … They were scared to death. When Awadallah was being questioned by the FBI, his chains were rattling. —Randy Hamud, lawyer for three post-September 11 material witnesses 125 The government has jailed almost all of the material witnesses held in connection with post-September 11 counterterrorism investigations under maximum security conditions, sometimes in the same special units holding the most dangerous prisoners in the facility. Many have been kept in solitary confinement twenty-four hours a day, with little time outside their cells for recreation. Some have been held in windowless cells. In some cells the lights have been kept on morning, noon, and night. Prison officials have handcuffed and shackled witnesses every time they have been removed from their cells, even during court appearances. 126 Particularly in the early stages of their detention, they have not been allowed to call their families or friends. Some of the material witnesses have endured physical and verbal abuse by prison guards who accused them of being terrorists. Material witnesses have consistently described their time behind bars as harrowing. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Justice Department had a general policy that all inmates, including material witnesses “who were at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in connection with the investigation into the September 11th terrorist attacks were designated high-security inmates and handled in accordance with the procedures for such inmates.” 127 The presumption at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, the main New York federal detention facility where many material witnesses have been held, has been that the witnesses were considered to be associated with terrorist groups until proven innocent: 125 HRW/ACLU telephone interview with Randy Hamud, attorney for Osama Awadallah, Omer Bakarbashat, Yazeed al-Salmi, August 16, 2004. 126 The Supreme Court, in holding that the Fifth Amendment bars courts from routinely visibly shackling defendants during the penalty phase of a capital proceeding, underscored that “[v]isible shackling undermines the presumption of innocence and the related fairness of the fact finding process.” Deck v. Missouri, 125 S.Ct. 2007, 2013 (2005). 127 United States v. Awadallah. 202 F. Supp. 2d 55. 61 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) (citing "Government's Post-Hearing Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant's Motions to Dismiss the Indictment and to Suppress the Evidence,” Dec. 26, 2001, p. 28, 39, overturned on other grounds, 349 F.3d 42, 53 (2d Cir. 2003)) (internal quotes and brackets omitted). 41 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G)
Page 1 and 2: Human Rights Watch June 2005 Vol. 1
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 and 18: those suspected of committing a cri
Page 19 and 20: Arizona, and Florida, where the nin
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 young children. 121 He was deta
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
Page 69 and 70: Things go on behind those doors tha
Page 71 and 72: providing interviews, submitting to
Page 73 and 74: Detaining Witnesses Who Cooperate w
Page 75 and 76: stayed with the FBI agents for eigh
Page 77 and 78: government, “I’m not coming.”
Page 79 and 80: armed forces for several years and
Page 81 and 82: Congress included the deposition re
Page 83 and 84: X. Haste, Incompetence, Prejudice:
Page 85 and 86: government’s basis was weak. Thes
Page 87 and 88: target, 272 the state police ordere
Page 89 and 90: Khan and Azmath were deported in Ja
Page 91 and 92: told them I told them I had no idea
Page 93 and 94:
y subletting their apartment. Altho
Page 95 and 96:
The post-scripts to the stories of
Page 97 and 98:
I could not ask questions. What’s
Page 99 and 100:
Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammad Azmath A
Page 101 and 102:
get all these kinds of questions—
Page 103:
Human Rights Watch and the American
show all

Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?