Iraqi’s INS Hearing to Resume Monday

A hearing to determine whether an Iraqi doctor should be deported as a threat to national security has been postponed until Monday in U.S. Immigration Court on Terminal Island.

When testimony resumes, attorneys for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service will have the opportunity to question Dr. Ali Yasin Mohammed Karim and call rebuttal witnesses in an attempt to keep the doctor from applying for political asylum.

Karim, who has been on the witness stand for two days, claims that he has never been an intelligence agent for any foreign power, including the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. government evacuated the 37-year-old physician from northern Iraq in 1996 as Hussein’s forces attacked opposition groups, including the Iraqi National Congress, which the doctor had joined.

Karim, however, has been jailed by the INS ever since he arrived in California almost 3 1/2 years ago. Government officials say there are indications he might be a spy for Iran, Iraq or Syria.

The doctor’s fight to clear his name has attracted national attention and raised serious questions about the government’s use of secret evidence and uncorroborated information in its efforts to deport people suspected of being national security risks.

Five other Iraqis were accused of being spies but have agreed to accept a deal in which they and their families will be sent to another democratic nation instead of seeking asylum in the United States.