Some Evidence Declassified in Case of Detained Iraqis

Newly declassified government documents in the controversial case of six Iraqi nationals jailed in Los Angeles as security risks show that the men came under suspicion because of alleged links to the Iraqi regime and their travels to neighboring countries suspected of sponsoring terrorism, an attorney for the six said Saturday.

About 500 pages of formerly secret documents were turned over to the Iraqis’ defense team on Friday, said Niels Frenzen, an attorney for the six--all of whom call themselves dissidents and patriots and say they face death if forced back to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

The newly declassified papers represent a significant development in the tangled case, which has attracted international attention. The six have been held for more than a year by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles, based on secret evidence described in the papers.

The six, Mohammed Jwer Al-Ammary, Safadin Abdulhassan Al-Batat, Adil Hadi Awadh, Ali Yasin Muhammad Karim, Mohammed Jassim Tuma and Ali Jahjoh Saleh, are appealing deportation orders while being held without bond at the INS lockup in San Pedro.

This marks the first time that the government has released details outlining its reasons for wanting to deport the six to Iraq. It has been widely assumed that Justice Department investigators believe the six are double agents for Hussein’s regime.

The documents do show that several are suspected of working for Saddam. But Frenzen said others have apparently fallen under a shadow largely because of their travels to Iran and Syria, nations that U.S. officials have accused of sponsoring terrorism. The six, like hundreds of thousands of other refugees from Iraq, say they left in fear of their lives.

“They were fleeing Iraqi persecution, or had to travel for medical reasons, to countries that have fairly porous borders with Iraq,” said Frenzen, of Public Counsel, a nonprofit law group based in Los Angeles.

Those accused of being double agents, Frenzen said, were apparently denounced by “unnamed informants” among the divided Iraqi opposition. Five of the six are ex-Iraqi military officers.

Justice Department spokesmen could not be reached Saturday to comment on the declassified documents. Why the government decided to make the once-secret material available is uncertain.

According to Frenzen, the Justice Department acted after an in-house review determined that the evidence was erroneously labeled secret.

“The government is saying, ‘Oops, we made a mistake. Let’s start all over again and try to to do this correctly,’ ” said Frenzen. “But the tragic thing is our clients have been separated from their wives and children all this time.”

Three U.S. senators--Trent S. Lott (R-Miss.), Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Jesse Helms (R-N.C.)--wrote to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno in June seeking a briefing on the case. Their request came after the government denied access to documents to former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, who joined the defense team representing the six in March and immediately denounced the case as a “stain on the honor of this country.”

Judge D.D. Sitgraves, a federal immigration judge in Los Angeles, ordered the six deported in March as “security risks to the United States.” But most of her ruling was sealed.

The 500 pages turned over last week include extensive transcripts of previously sealed testimony by FBI agents during closed-door deportation hearings. The judge’s decision was not among the documents unsealed, though Frenzen said he expected that most of the ruling would be made available shortly.