Ashcroft Denies Wide Detainee Abuse

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Tuesday that there has been no wholesale abuse of those being detained in the five-week federal terrorism investigation, even as four more cases surfaced in which young men allegedly are being kept from their attorneys and confined in jails without proper food or protection.

The new cases, in Florida and Pennsylvania, include a Pakistani man who has lost 20 pounds as he sits in jail with suspected murderers and other violent offenders, and a teenage Iraqi whose family said he came to America to escape one repressive regime and now fears he may have found another.

Their attorney said she has found it next to impossible to learn much about their condition or legal situation--a frustration made worse, she said, because the four men are being held for minor immigration infractions.

Immigration and Naturalization Service officials will not comment on specific cases, but Ashcroft denied that there has been any purposeful abuse of the 700 people detained since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The Times reported Monday on numerous cases in which detainees have allegedly been abused, denied access to their lawyers, refused bond or deprived of basic provisions.

The attorney general went so far as to urge anyone with such allegations to contact his office.

“I would be happy to hear from individuals if there are any alleged abuses of individuals, because that is not the way we do business,” he said.

He said that the Justice Department is “aggressive in detaining those who have violated the law,” but stressed that “we will respect the constitutional rights and we will respect the dignity of individuals.”

Ashcroft also met with leaders of Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities in the United States, pledging to press hate crime prosecutions against anyone targeting Middle Easterners for violence.

He said authorities have opened 170 hate-crime investigations into killings, shootings, death threats, arson and the destruction of mosques and other places of worship.

“Such senseless acts violate federal law. They run counter to the very principles of equality and freedom upon which our nation is founded,” Ashcroft said. “Such attacks are un-American and unlawful.”

But on the issue of treatment of those taken into custody, Hina Askari, a Sunrise, Fla., attorney who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan, said she is deeply frustrated by her inability to adequately represent her clients.

Her complaints mirror those of other defense lawyers and detainees who have alleged numerous incidents of abuse in jails in Mississippi, New York, the Midwest and elsewhere.

“When I ask for information, they don’t tell me anything,” Askari said. “It used to take overnight to find something out, now it takes days. It’s been a nightmare.”

One of her clients is Obaid Usmani, a Pakistani in his 20s who was picked up two weeks ago for violating his student visa.

She said FBI agents came to his south Florida apartment at 5:30 in the morning and questioned him about the terrorist attacks.

Normally, she said, he would have been released on bond until he could appear before an immigration judge. Instead, she said, he is being held at an INS detention complex near Miami, and is housed in areas with people suspected of murder and other violent crimes.

“He’s called names and he’s tried to get the other inmates to leave him alone,” she said. “I told him to be calm.”

His cousin, Farhat Khan of Boca Raton, Fla., said Usmani, who is a devout Muslim, cannot eat much of the jail food because of his religious beliefs, and his prayers are disrupted.

Khan added that it is against his cousin’s religious beliefs to shower with other men, but that the jail is equipped with group showers.

“He looks terrible,” Khan said. “He has lost weight. He’s in a jail where he cannot even take a bath with all of these people.

“He cannot eat because he needs special slaughter and they’re not giving him the food he needs. So he only eats rice. He tries to pray, and the other people curse at him.

“I shook his hand when I left. It looked like he didn’t have any muscles left. And he started crying.”

Another detainee is Duraid Sulaiman, an 18-year-old who was detained when he sought political asylum upon landing in August at the Miami airport. His lawyer and family said he was fleeing Iraq, where he was about to be conscripted into the Iraqi army.

Under the law, Askari said, INS officials interviewed Sulaiman about his “credible fears” about being returned to Iraq. The lawyer said he was about to be released from jail, and then came Sept. 11.

“I speak to him now, and he tells me no Iraqis are being released,” the lawyer said.

Sulaiman is the youngest of a large family in the United States, including his parents and numerous siblings.

His brother, Fawzi Suliman, is confused.

“He’s not supposed to be in there,” the brother said. “For Iraqis, when they get to the United States, even illegally, they normally have a right to asylum.

“We all want to cooperate in finding the terrorists, but I also want my brother’s life back. He deserves to be out of there. He’s scared. He’s only 18 years old, and he hasn’t seen much in life yet.”

Askari declined to identify the other two detainees until she could get permission from their families.

She said one is a 31-year-old Pakistani picked up Sept. 19 at his home in south Florida for overstaying his visa. She said he too is very religious and prays five times a day.

“They asked him about the bombing and how he felt about it,” she said. “They wanted to know if he thought it was a good thing.

“But the INS never asks people these kinds of questions. So he was scared. And then the authorities told him he was a criminal, that he’s lying to them.”

She said he had no role in the terrorist attacks and has been moved to a jail in Key West, Fla., making it harder for him to see his lawyer or family.

“When he calls, he cries on the phone,” Askari said. “I tell him everything is going to be fine, but he cries and then he says he has to go and he cries some more.”

The fourth detainee is a 19-year-old Pakistani picked up at the Canadian border about a week before the terrorist attacks. He was also seeking asylum. Askari and the man’s father, who lives in Florida, had worked out an arrangement where they would post $5,000 bond and he would be released to his father’s custody until he could go to court.

The father was buying his son a bus ticket and Askari was preparing to post the bond, all on Sept. 12. But the day before, four hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania.

“The father is furious and there is nothing I can do,” Askari said. “The kid calls me and he’s terrified. They’re all terrified.”