First a 9/11 convict is released and now this..
Not even a month back in Germany the first individual to be convicted in connection of 9/11 was released, and now this...to me the war on terror hasn't been productive at all.
U.S. settles with Sept. 11 detainee for $300,000, lawyer says
ELIZABETH LESURE
Associated Press
New York — The U.S. government has agreed to pay $300,000 (U.S.) to an Egyptian man who was detained for nearly a year following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but was never linked to terrorism, his lawyer said.
The settlement was filed in Brooklyn federal court on Monday, said lawyer Haeyoung Yoon, who represents Ehab Elmaghraby. She said she believed it was the first settlement involving the claims of people detained after Sept. 11.
Mr. Elmaghraby, a former restaurant worker, was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn from Oct. 1, 2001, until August, 2002, Ms. Yoon said.
He was not charged with any crime connected to terrorism but pleaded guilty to credit card fraud and was deported in August, 2003. He now says he's innocent of the credit card fraud, Ms. Yoon said.
In a lawsuit filed in August, 2004, Mr. Elmaghraby and a Pakistani man, Javaid Iqbal, claimed their rights were violated in U.S. custody and sought compensatory damages. They also argued that the government wouldn't let them appeal their solitary confinement in a special unit of the detention centre.
Their lawsuit named former U.S. attorney-general John Ashcroft and dozens of other federal officials.
Mr. Elmaghraby said he was shackled, shoved into walls, punched and called a terrorist at the facility. Ms. Yoon said he was subjected to repetitive strip searches and a correction officer penetrated his anal cavity with a flashlight.
While in custody, Mr. Elmaghraby's thyroid condition was misdiagnosed as asthma, worsening it, Ms. Yoon said. He wanted to continue with the lawsuit but settled because of his mounting medical costs, she said.
Voice mail boxes for the U.S. Department of Justice were full Monday night and couldn't accept messages from the Associated Press seeking comment on the settlement, in which the government did not admit wrongdoing.
“Despite the fact that the U.S. admitted no wrongdoing,” Ms. Yoon said, “they are compensating Mr. Elmaghraby for the injuries he suffered.”
The Metropolitan Detention Center was cited for brutal treatment of detainees in a 2003 report by the Department of Justice's inspector-general.
The settlement, first reported by The New York Times on its website late Monday, must be approved by a federal judge. Mr. Iqbal's case against the government continues.
A federal judge in September, 2005, rejected a claim by Mr. Ashcroft that the lawsuit should be dismissed partly because the threat of foreign terrorism exempts the government from following rules made in peacetime.
Mr. Ashcroft said in a response to the lawsuit that the threat of terrorist attacks meant the government should not have been required to follow regulations allowing inmates to appeal assignment to the special unit.
More than 80 men were classified as suspected terrorists and were jailed in high-security cells at the Brooklyn facility between Sept. 14, 2001, and Aug. 27, 2002.
A separate class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Brooklyn in 2002 on behalf of hundreds of detainees in Brooklyn and New Jersey.
In that lawsuit, the Center for Constitutional Rights charged that Mr. Ashcroft and other officials subjected prisoners to excessively harsh conditions though they had not been charged with crimes.
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