NEW YORK, May 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Saying he was unlawfully arrested, a New York judge on Tuesday, April 30, dismissed charges filed against a Jordanian student who was accused of lying to U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents about his alleged connections to two of the September 11 hijackers.

Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled Tuesday that the FBI's arrest and detention of Osama Awadallah was unlawful and the government had no right to detain him, saying government authorities exercised an "unauthorized use of the material witness status," and ruled that authorities failed to notify the federal magistrate who issued the arrest warrant that Awadallah had been arrested three hours earlier.

Basically saying the material witness statute "does not authorize the detention of witnesses for a grand jury investigation," Scheindlin’s ruling effectively stated that the government's jailing of material witnesses for a grand jury investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was unconstitutional.

Scheindlin said authorities made several "misrepresentations and omissions" to get an arrest warrant for Awadallah, 21, and then misapplied the material witness statute to have him testify before a grand jury, reported the U.S. daily newspaper, Washington Post.

Awadallah was detained as a material witness until he was charged with perjury.

Because the warrant was issued only after Awadallah was arrested, Scheindlin ruled, she suppressed the grand jury testimony in which Awadallah allegedly committed perjury, Awadallah's post-arrest statements to the FBI and evidence FBI agents gathered at his apartment.

As such, the indictment against him must also then also be dismissed, she ruled.

"Relying on the material-witness statute to detain people who are presumed innocent under our Constitution in order to prevent potential crimes is an illegitimate use of the statute," Scheindlin said in the ruling.

"If the government has a probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime, it may arrest that person," Scheindlin wrote. "But since 1789, no Congress has granted the government the authority to imprison an innocent person in order to guarantee that he will testify before a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation," the Post reported.

Scheindlin said the Founding Fathers of the U.S. who wrote the Bill of Rights believed people "should forever `be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects' from intrusion and seizure by officers acting under the unbridled authority of a general warrant," reports news agencies.

She added that, "A proper respect for the laws that Congress does enact - as well as the inalienable right to liberty - prohibits this court from rewriting the law, no matter how exigent the circumstances."

"Detaining Awadallah solely for the purposes of a grand jury investigation was therefore unlawful," Scheindlin wrote. "Such an interpretation poses the threat of making detention the norm and liberty the exception."

"Having committed no crime - indeed, without any claim that there was probable cause to believe he had violated any law - Awadallah bore the full weight of a prison system designed to punish convicted criminals as well as incapacitate individuals arrested or indicted for criminal conduct," she said.

The 21-year-old college student at Grossmont College in El Cajon, California, was arrested in San Diego on September 20 after his name and telephone number were found in the glove-box of a car left in a Dulles International Airport parking garage by one of the suspected hijackers.

Awadallah said that 20 FBI agents surrounded him on a San Diego street on September 20, did not advise him of his rights and questioned him without a lawyer, reports news agencies.

He at first denied knowing Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Midhar, but ultimately confessed to the FBI that he had met the two men at a San Diego mosque, though he insisted they had only the barest of casual acquaintance and that he had not seen either of them in more than a year.

Awadallah was released from detention on a half million-dollar bail December 13 after spending three months in federal detention, and was placed under surveillance at his family's home in southern California.

Scheindlin had previously voiced doubts about the strength of the government's case. In November, she ruled Awadallah was eligible for bail because the evidence against him was "not particularly strong," reports news agencies.

Scheindlin's decision could have far-reaching implications for the hundreds of alleged material witnesses - people believed to have knowledge critical to the investigation - arrested and detained in the wide-ranging probe in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, many of whom remain behind bars in states nationwide.

In a statement, federal prosecutor for Manhattan James Comey said, "we believe the court's opinions are wrong on the fact and the law and we are reviewing our appellate options."

Awadallah's attorney, Jesse Berman, said, "It's wonderful for my client, who suffered enough and never did anything wrong," reported CNN, adding that, "He can get on with his life. It's a shame he spent three months in jail."