|
Reno Orders Mazen Al-Najjar Released
by Jamshed Bokhari for IslamOnline
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian academic Mazen al-Najjar, who has been in a Manatee County, Florida jail for three years without any charges filed against him on what government officials call "secret evidence", was ordered released by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno on Friday.
Reno lifted a stay that had kept Al-Najjar imprisoned. The Justice Department had no comment. However, in an accompanying statement, Reno said that Justice Department officials “anticipate he could be deported from the United States soon.”
Al-Najjar's attorney Martin Schwartz did not know when his client would be released from the Manatee County Detention Center, but said the man's elated family was headed there.
“We are absolutely ecstatic Janet Reno has come to her senses and stopped this unconstitutional detention,'' Schwartz said.
“I feel so happy. I give thanks to God,'' said Al-Najjar's sister, Nahla Al-Arian.
Al-Najjar had been on the verge of freedom several times, most recently Tuesday, when Reno stopped his release, saying she wanted more time to review the case. His family, stunned by the news, had been waiting at the detention center with an $8,000 check to post his bond when the stay was issued.
“God is great,” a supporter hollered as the glass door to the immigration service detention facility opened and Najjar was released.
“It’s a historic day after 1,307 days in jail,” said Sami Al-Arian, Al-Najjar’s brother in-law.
Tears rolled down the face of his sister, Nahla.
“I hope this is the end of the nightmare,” Al-Najjar said.
Mazen’s 12-year-old daughter, Yara, expressed her joy at finally having her father home, “I am so happy. I am just going to tell him that I love him.”
The U.S. government had maintained that al-Najjar, 43, had links to groups in the Middle East that Washington labels as “terrorists”, and that he was a threat to U.S. national security.
Al-Najjar has consistently denied the allegations.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had held him for three years without charges and not even his lawyers have ever seen the evidence against him.
Aly Abuzakouk of the American Muslim Council (AMC), a Washington-based organization dedicated to the political empowerment of American Muslims, who have been vigorously advocating his case, sounding a bit like Martin Luther King, said of al-Najjar’s release, “We thank God Almighty that Mazen is free at last on Friday in this blessed month of Ramadan.”
The laws under which al-Najjar is being held, “secret evidence” legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City, allows the U.S. government, through various agencies, to hold those it believes are threats to U.S. national security without charges filed against them, an act that lawyers and civil rights activists say is unconstitutional.
They state that the law contradicts the Fifth and Sixth Amendments in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution which state that no person can “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” and that the accused must “be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation,” against him and the accused allowed “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”
Civil rights activists and some U.S. congressmen, like Boiner, working for al-Najjar’s release, state that “secret evidence” laws contradict these explicit rights given in the Constitution, and that they should be repealed.
Abuzakouk, commenting on al-Najjar’s release and the secret evidence laws, said, “We hope that next session in the 107th Congress we will put the secret evidence to the records of history. We will repeal it, inshallah.”
A U.S. Immigration judge, R. Kevin McHugh, last week ordered Al-Najjar’s release on $8,000 bail, saying the government failed to prove its case in court, violated his right of due process and failed to give him enough information to defend himself. The Board of Immigration Appeal (BIA) then held up the release, but lifted its own order Monday.
Attorneys received a phone call telling them of Reno’s action just moments before al-Najjar was to have been released, said Bonior, who was waiting outside the detention center with family and supporters.
Bonior had last week called for Reno’s resignation because of Al-Najjar’s case and that of Anwar Haddam, who has also been held on secret evidence for four years in Fredericksburg, VA.
Haddam was released from jail provisionally last Thursday. The BIA granted him political asylum, but the INS referred the case to Reno, asking her to overturn the ruling. Reno instead stayed the grant of asylum for 45 days to give her time to study the case and hear briefings from both sides.
The INS agreed to let Haddam out of jail on temporary parole with conditions limiting his movements to the Washington, DC area.
Al-Najjar and Haddam are among about 20 immigrants, mostly Arabs living in America, who have been held in U.S. jails without criminal charges on the basis of classified evidence.
Al-Najjar, who was raised in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, has been in the United States since 1981. His student visa expired years ago and the INS contends he has been living illegally in this country. He is married and has three American-born daughters.
He and his brother-in-law were associated with the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, an academic think tank affiliated with the University of South Florida, and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, a group that said its mission was fostering better understanding of Muslim issues.
The federal government maintained the Florida organizations fronted for the Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for bombings against Israel in the Middle East.
Al-Najjar has denied these ties.
|
