Attacks Resulted in All Kinds of Victims

To the north of this tiny rural town, the Glades Inn motel has signs asking guests not to clean fish in their rooms; there’s an extra charge if they do.

To the south, road signs advise “Panther Crossing.”

Country boys spend a lot of time hunting and fishing, and the big deal of the year is the crowning of the Swamp Cabbage Festival queen.

Farming is big business. The area bills itself as the Citrus Capital of Florida. Migrant workers, most from Mexico, pick the crops.

And this is where Fathi Mustafa settled, a Palestinian-born shopkeeper who became a U.S. citizen.

A hand-lettered sign above Mustafa’s shop on Hickpoochee Street proclaims it the LaBelle Department Store. The place is about as big as a four-car garage. Mustafa, 66, and his family have lived and worked in LaBelle for seven years. His son runs a grocery-gas station on the edge of town.

People here like the hard-working family. And many locals did not like what happened to their neighbors after Sept. 11.

“They stereotyped people in this just because they’re from the Mideast,” said Steve Crews, who runs a septic tank business with his father. “A lot of people in town are upset about this. They feel they were done wrong.”

The Mustafas were indicted, jailed, held in isolation and threatened with deportation even though both are U.S. citizens.

They got in their predicament simply by choosing to go to Mexico a few days before Sept. 11 on a trip to buy stock for two stores that sell merchandise mostly to migrant workers--work boots, Western wear, belt buckles with the Mexican flag on them.

On Sept. 15, Mustafa and the oldest of his five sons, Nacer, 29, were returning through Bush International Airport in Houston.

Federal authorities at the airport were on high alert.

They accused the Mustafas of having put an extra layer of lamination on their passports.

“My dad and I were taken to separate rooms and questioned about why we had altered our passports,” Nacer Mustafa said.

“The worst part was when I heard my dad pleading, crying in the next room. The poor guy has never had so much as a parking ticket. I was scared he was going to have a heart attack.”

He continued: “Some anti-terrorist task force guy tried to get me to admit I had laminated my passport. He said that in case I was deported, he wanted to know what country I would want to go to. I told him I was a U.S. citizen, but that didn’t faze him.”

Before and after court appearances--four times in all--father and son had to undress and undergo body cavity searches, Nacer Mustafa said.

Nacer Mustafa was worried that his father would not be able to bear the pressure. He says his dad has a heart condition, had prostate cancer two years ago, is a diabetic and is generally in poor health.

His father has difficulty talking about the experience without his eyes tearing and his voice choking. Jailers gave him an extra shirt to put on the floor for his prayers, so when he touched his head and the palms of his hands to the floor he wouldn’t get dirty. They also gave him a copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

When the older man was released on bond after 11 days, he had to wear an electronic bracelet used to keep track of criminals. His son was released after 67 days.

“I was beginning to get weird thoughts,” Mustafa said. “You know, maybe that I would go to prison without being guilty of anything, that I would never see my family again.”

Charges against both were dropped. Laboratory analysis established that neither passport had been altered, authorities said. Nacer Mustafa says it is obvious that authorities used the passport accusation as a pretext for holding them.

Nacer Mustafa remains angry at those who arrested him, saying they lied under oath. But he adds, “I’m not mad at the American people over this.”

In fact, the detention has brought the Mustafas and their neighbors in LaBelle closer.

“Hey, I’m glad to see you back,” Crews said. “I’m real sorry about how you were treated.”

Others complained to the FBI.

“Fine people. . . . People think a lot of those folks here,” muttered Easton Burchard, the Hendry County building inspector, whose office is just down the street from Mustafa’s store.