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U.S. Still Holding Palestinian On Secret Evidence
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", will remain in custody. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno on Tuesday blocked his scheduled release.
The U.S. government maintains that al-Najjar, 43, has links to groups in the Middle East that Washington labels as “terrorists”, and that he is a threat to U.S. national security.
Al-Najjar, and his attorneys, David Cole of Georgetown University Law School and Democratic Whip David Bonior (MI), deny the allegations.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has held him for three years without charges and not even his lawyers have ever seen the evidence against him.
Reno blocked his release until 5:00 pm Friday saying that she wanted to “personally review the appropriateness” of allowing his immediate release.
Family members, including al-Najjar’s wife, Fedaa, and daughter, Nahla Al-Arian, when hearing the news of the delay, sat down in stunned disbelief on the steps of the Manatee County Detention Center.
His other 12-year-old daughter, Yara, said, “I’m disappointed. It hurts,” who waited outside the center with her family and about 50 supporters.
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state that “secret evidence” laws contradict these explicit rights given in the Constitution, and that they should be repealed.
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.
Earlier on Tuesday, when al-Najjar’s released seemed imminent, the American Muslim Council (AMC), a Washington-based organization dedicated to the political empowerment of American Muslims, who have been vigorously advocating his case, issued a press release announcing a most likely release of al-Najjar.
When that did not happen, the AMC released another announcement via e-mail and faxes to AMC members and Islamic organizations in the U.S. requesting they send messages to Reno and the Justice Department to release al-Najjar.
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