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Jordanian jailed last year sues U.S.

Osama Awadallah's lawsuit names Ashcroft top defendant

Osama Awadallah was arrested on September 21, 2001.
Osama Awadallah was arrested on September 21, 2001.  


From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A Jordanian college student who was detained as a material witness in the September 11 investigation last year is suing the United States government for violating his civil rights.

A federal judge presiding over the criminal case has already found in favor of Osama Awadallah that the government misused the material witness statute against him.

But in a civil suit filed in U.S. District Court in Lower Manhattan, Awadallah is seeking monetary damages for alleged violations of his rights under the Constitution, federal statutes and the Geneva Protocols.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is the top defendant named.

Awadallah, 22, who was acquainted with two hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, was arrested September 21, 2001 -- 10 days after the attacks.

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He was detained as a material witness and later charged with lying about his relationship with those hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almidhar, who lived in San Diego, California, near Awadallah.

"There was a political desire to seize somebody to make it appear that the government of the United States was in control," said attorney James Meyerson, who filed the suit Thursday.

Awadallah "became one of the first symbols of an overactive government pursuit of individuals," Meyerson said.

FBI agents had tracked down Awadallah after finding his first name and former phone number on a scrap of paper in the glove compartment of the car abandoned by Alhazmi at Dulles Airport outside Washington.

Searching his apartment, they found a poster of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden downloaded on his computer and videotapes about Muslim fighters in Bosnia in his car.

The April ruling

In April, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that Awadallah's three-month incarceration was unlawful because the government has no "authority to imprison an innocent person in order to guarantee that he will testify before a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation."

She dismissed the perjury charges against Awadallah, finding that "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."

Material witness warrants are usually used rarely by prosecutors in order to compel a person who may have witnessed a crime -- but is reluctant to testify -- to take the stand at trial.

Awadallah had met Alhazmi and Almidhar 18 months before the attacks, after he had moved to California to live near his older brother, a permanent U.S. resident, and father, a naturalized U.S. citizen. He enrolled in Grossmont Community College, where he studied English.

Awadallah told investigators that he had seen Alhazmi about 40 times -- sometimes with Almidhar, at the gas station at which he worked, or at a mosque. But Awadallah said he hadn't seen either man for nearly a year before the attacks.

In his first grand jury appearance, Awadallah denied knowing a "Khalid" -- referring to Almidhar -- or writing his name in a college exam booklet that investigators found. Awadallah changed his testimony five days later, but was charged with making two false statements and could have faced up to 10 years in prison.

His lawsuit complains of being subjected to improper search and seizure, excessive force, improper arrest, and unlawful imprisonment. It relies on Scheindlin's factual findings, which came after a four-day evidentiary hearing earlier this year.

"She is very strong in condemning the acts of government agents from beginning to end," Meyerson said.

In addition to Ashcroft, the lawsuit targets FBI agents who handled the case and one New York prosecutor who authorized Awadallah's arrest in San Diego prior to obtaining a warrant.

"The Constitution makes it clear you have to be arrested on a warrant issued by a judge," said attorney Jesse Berman, who also represents Awadallah.

Allegations of discrimination, bigotry

Awadallah, a Muslim, further alleges in his suit that religious discrimination and bigotry motivated the government's actions.

The Geneva Protocols are a factor because of Awadallah's immigrant status.

"As a foreign national, he was entitled to have the Jordanian consulate notified of the situation, and he was not given that opportunity," Meyerson said.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are appealing Scheindlin's ruling and trying to reinstate the perjury case against Awadallah.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, is to hear oral arguments on that no earlier than November 11.

Already, one senior federal judge, also in Manhattan Federal Court, Michael Mukasey, had contradicted Scheindlin, saying that prosecutors do have the right under the material witness statute to detain individuals without charges.

The Awadallah case could have implications in many post-September 11 cases of detainees held on material witness warrants.

Awadallah spent a total of 83 days in jail, treated as a high-security inmate often in solitary confinement until Scheindlin granted him bail last December.



 
 
 
 


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