Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

X. Haste, Incompetence, Prejudice: The Arrest of Witnesses Who
Have No Information
The number of men arrested and incarcerated as material witnesses who had no
connection to, much less knowledge about, terrorists or terrorist activities is significant.
Based on government admissions of mistaken arrests, Congressional inquiries, and our
review of material witness cases, as many as one-third of the witnesses had no relevant
information regarding any criminal activity. 258 In these cases, the information suggesting
that the witness had any information relating to an investigation was erroneous. The
number may be substantially greater, but cannot be ascertained until more records are
made public. Forty-two witnesses never faced any charges, and only seven faced any
terrorism-related charges.
In a significant proportion of cases, witnesses have had information, but it was far too
minimal, tangential, or circumstantial to provide the basis for arrest and incarceration.
There may have been good reasons for the Justice Department to want to talk to some
of these men, such as those who had prior contacts with hijackers, but absent any
evidence of wrongdoing, there was no good reason for arresting them and forcing them
to languish in jail. If the government had been willing to proceed more carefully, if it had
taken more seriously the liberty interests of the men, few of the seventy would have
been considered genuine material witnesses, and even fewer would have been deemed
flight risks. What has accounted for the appalling record of arresting utterly innocent
people and locking them up for months?
The federal government understandably felt great urgency after the September 11
attacks, particularly in light of the limited information the FBI had about al-Qaeda at the
time, and this apparently induced federal investigators and attorneys to lower their
professional standards. Yet months and years after September 11, when federal agents
have assessed how to proceed with Muslim men of Middle Eastern and South Asian
descent who had attracted their notice for one reason or another, they have rushed to
judgment, and failed to acquire and develop solid evidence. In case after case, federal
investigators and attorneys have given undue weight to unverified tips, made poor
inferences from the information they had, and leapt to dubious conclusions.
258
In addition to the public apologies for wrongful arrests and admissions in Congress, Justice Department
officials have acknowledged that some material witnesses held in the September 11 investigations may have no
relevant information. See also Center for National Security Studies v. Department of Justice, Reynolds Aff. 36,
No. 01-2500 (D.D.C. 2002), Chief of the Terrorism and Violent Crime Section in the Criminal Division of the U.S.
Department of Justice, James Reynolds (noting that “it may turn out that [material witnesses held in connection
to September 11] have no information useful to the investigation or that they are innocent people who are able
to assist the government in its investigations”).
81 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G)