NEW YORK, February 28, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The US government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle an illegal detention lawsuit brought by an Egyptian man who was among hundreds of Muslims rounded up in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"It underlines that due process and fair treatment should be reserved and protected even in times of chaos," Alexander Reinert, the lawyer of Ehab El-Maghraby, was quoted as saying Tuesday, February 26, by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The settlement was filed in federal court in Brooklyn, but the US government stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing against the plaintiff.

Despite the lack of an admission of official liability, Reinert said the settlement amounted to "an important statement of accountability" for what happened to his client.

Elmaghraby's lawsuit, which named the then US attorney general John Ashcroft as a defendant, had been filed in May 2004, along with a co-plaintiff, Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani citizen.

As well as Ashcroft, the lawsuit named the former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Kathleen Sawyer, as well as a number of former and current Metropolitan Detention Center officials.

A 2003 report by Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found that some prison officers slammed detainees against walls, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods.

The report said videotapes showed some detention center staff "misused strip searches and restraints to punish detainees and that officers improperly and illegally recorded detainees' meetings with their attorneys."

US Muslims and Arabs have taken the brunt of sweeping federal powers applied in the wake of the 9/11 attacks

Maghrabi and Iqbal, who were both working in New York at the time of the September 11 attack, said they were physically and mentally abused in the city's Metropolitan Detention Center, where they were held with hundreds of Muslims picked up in an anti-terror sweep.

The suit claims the plaintiffs were subjected to systematic cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including numerous instances of excessive force and verbal abuse, unlawful strip and body-cavity searches, the denial of medical treatment and extended detention in solitary confinement.

At one point, Iqbal said he was kicked in the stomach by his captors, punched in the face and dragged across a room.

Elmaghraby, who was held in the center's special unit for nearly a year, alleged that correction officers had inserted a flashlight into his rectum during one cavity search, leaving him bleeding.

The two men eventually pleaded guilty to minor charges unrelated to terrorism and were deported to their countries after serving prison time.

More than 1,200 Muslim and South Asian men rounded up after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Reuters count.

Some of the detainees have sued the US government after their release for inhumane and degrading treatment and a total blackout of communications in detention centers on the US soil.

In August of 2004, a US judge has chided the US administration for building a terrorism support case against two Muslims in New York on false evidence.

A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that the Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the United States have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.