testblog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Sin Yen Ling, Esq.
212-966-5932

New York, New York – On September 17, 2004, CBS News reported that the FBI was planning to conduct rounds of interrogations, surveillance and possible detentions to deter possible disruptions around the Presidential elections. The FBI agents will be aggressively conducting surveillance of persons identified as terrorist sympathizers, but who have not committed any crime. Individuals and their family members may be called in for questioning. Mosques will be visited and members will be asked whether they have observed suspicious behavior. The so-called "October Plan" is scheduled to go into effect the first week of October and continue through the elections, according to CBS News.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund ("AALDEF") is offering free legal advice and representation to concerned individuals approached by the FBI. AALDEF attorneys have represented persons caught up in previous rounds of the government's surveillance and questioning initiated by the FBI and NYPD Terrorism Task Force. For assistance, please contact AALDEF at:

1-800-966-5946
212-966-5932 x 213
Fax: 212-966-4303
Email: legal@aaldef.org
Emergency after 7:00 pm, call 917-533-0903

Individuals seeking legal assistance may also call to set up private, confidential meetings with AALDEF attorneys. All information will be kept confidential and in the custody of attorneys.

Founded in 1974, AALDEF protects and promotes the civil rights of Asian Americans through litigation, legal advocacy, and community education in the areas of immigrant rights, economic justice for workers, voting rights and civic participation, affirmative action, language access to services, youth rights and educational equity and the elimination of hate violence and police misconduct.

Posted by Konrad at 04:42 PM | Permalink

September 13, 2004, 4:29 PM EDT

NEWARK, N.J. -- The federal government has agreed to release a stowaway who had been among the nation's longest-held immigration detainees.

His lawyer said Salim Yassir is expected to be set free from a detention center within the next two weeks, and can stay in the United States until federal authorities find a country to which they can deport him.

Yassir had sued the government, claiming he could not be held indefinitely.

In papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Colette Buchanan said the court did not have to order Yassir's release because the government has already decided to let him go.

"He's kind of in shock about it," Yassir's lawyer, Joshua Bardavid said. "What he's been hoping for four years is finally happening. He's very, very happy and excited."

Bardavid said Yassir will stay at least temporarily at Christ House, a religious group facility in the Bronx, which will provide him with lodging, meals and living expenses until he can find a job on his own.

Yassir, who has been the cook at the detention center in Elizabeth where he has been held, hopes to find a similar job once he is released.

In August 2000, he was found hiding in a ship bound for Port Elizabeth, and turned over to federal immigration authorities, whom he asked for political asylum. A judge denied the application, so Yassir agreed to be deported.

Yassir, 28, is from Gaza City in the Gaza Strip, an area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. In order to send him back there, U.S. authorities would have needed permission from Israel, which does not have a repatriation agreement for Palestinians.

Authorities also have been unable to find a third country to accept him, although those efforts will continue. He will be able to stay in the United States until a country is willing to accept him, Bardavid said. The only thing that could allow him to stay here permanently is marrying a U.S. citizen and applying for an adjustment in his immigration status, the attorney said.

Yassir's situation is similar to that of another former detainee, Farouk Abdel-Muhti, who claimed that as a stateless Palestinian there was no nation to which he could legally be deported. He was held for nearly two years before being released in April, pending deportation, but died three months later.

In court papers, Buchanan said efforts to deport Yassir have been complicated because he cannot prove citizenship in any country.

The lawsuit seeking his freedom was taken to a federal appeals court in Philadelphia, which kicked the matter back to Newark. Monday was the deadline for government officials to respond to Yassir's request for an order granting his release.

Still to be determined are the conditions of his supervised release, which could include electronic monitoring, Bardavid said.

Copyright (c) 2004, The Associated Press

This article originally appeared at: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj--four-yeardetainee0913sep13, 0,101426.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com

Posted by Konrad at 10:06 AM | Permalink

The reversal came a day after federal prosecutors handed in a nine-month review ordered by the judge and asked that he overturn the convictions. Prosecutors blame missteps in the case on Richard Convertino, who was removed last year as lead prosecutor and is under investigation [see INB 2/7/04]. "The prosecution committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights that deprived the defendants of discoverable evidence" and "created a record filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist," the review found. David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, said the Detroit case "fits into a broader pattern of the Ashcroft Justice Department overplaying its hand in terror cases and making broad allegations of terror without the evidence to back it up." [New York Times 9/2/04, 9/3/04] Immigration News Briefs (INB), a weekly English-language summary of US immigration news, is forwarded out to the email list of the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI). If you receive INB as a forwarded message, and you wish to subscribe directly to INB, or to the CHRI email list (which includes INB and local NYC area events, average 4-5 messages a week), write to nicajg@panix.com (indicate "CHRI list" or "INB only").

Immigration News Briefs (INB), un resumen semanal en ingles de noticias sobre inmigracion en los EE.UU., es enviado cada semana a la lista de correo electronico de la Coalicion para los Derechos Humanos de los Inmigrantes. Si el INB le llega como mensaje reenviado, y usted quiere subscribir directamente al INB, o a la lista de correo de CHRI (que incluye INB, mas anuncios de actividades en el area de NYC, promedio de 4-5 mensajes por semana), escriba al nicajg@panix.com (indique si quiere "lista de CHRI" o "solo INB").

Posted by Konrad at 09:52 AM | Permalink

Yassir was born in Gaza and moved to a refugee camp in Libya at age 10. He briefly lived in Syria and England before arriving in New Jersey as a stowaway on a Wallenius Lines ship in 2000. He has been held ever since at the immigration detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. On Aug. 9 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that Yassir had established his identity, and sent his habeas case back to the district court for a new hearing, now set for Sept. 13. The district court had ruled that the government could not release Yassir because it couldn't confirm his identity. "The government was out of options," said Yassir's attorney, Joshua Bardavid. "They had to go to a judge and get a final ruling in the case. So instead of releasing him, they try to take him in the middle of the night and put him on a ship."

In June 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Zadvydas v. Davis that immigrants ordered deported should not be held over 180 days while authorities seek their removal; later this year the court is to decide, in Benitez v. Mata, whether this principle applies to people deemed "inadmissable" upon arrival. The government will not say how many detainees have been held over 180 days following a final removal order. In January 2004 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of 128 such detainees; when attorneys in the Detention Watch Network checked the list, they found at least 84 of their clients in this category were unlisted. [Star Ledger (Newark, NJ) 8/28/04; AP 8/28/04]

Immigration News Briefs (INB), a weekly English-language summary of US immigration news, is forwarded out to the email list of the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI). If you receive INB as a forwarded message, and you wish to subscribe directly to INB, or to the CHRI email list (which includes INB and local NYC area events, average 4-5 messages a week), write to nicajg@panix.com (indicate "CHRI list" or "INB only").

Immigration News Briefs (INB), un resumen semanal en ingles de noticias sobre inmigracion en los EE.UU., es enviado cada semana a la lista de correo electronico de la Coalicion para los Derechos Humanos de los Inmigrantes. Si el INB le llega como mensaje reenviado, y usted quiere subscribir directamente al INB, o a la lista de correo de CHRI (que incluye INB, mas anuncios de actividades en el area de NYC, promedio de 4-5 mensajes por semana), escriba al nicajg@panix.com (indique si quiere "lista de CHRI" o "solo INB").

Posted by Konrad at 09:49 AM | Permalink

DETROIT, Aug. 31 - The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to throw out terrorism convictions against two Arab men accused of forming a sleeper cell based here, people involved in the case said Tuesday. The move abandons the crucial charge in what was the first major terrorism trial after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The department has also conceded errors in its handling of the case, though it will pursue a new trial on document fraud charges, the sources said.

"The defense is ecstatic about their decision, and while we had hoped the case would have been dismissed in its entirety, we believe we are up to the challenge of the document fraud case," said Jim Thomas, a lawyer for one of the defendants.

The department is expected to make the decision public on Wednesday. It was first reported Tuesday evening by The Associated Press.

In June 2003, the government won convictions on a material support of terrorism charge against two of four Arab men it accused of forming what it called a "sleeper operational combat cell." It also won a document fraud conviction against a third man. A fourth man was acquitted.

At the time, the administration hailed the convictions as a major victory in the fight against terrorism.

"Today's convictions send a clear message," Attorney General John Ashcroft said at the time. "The Department of Justice will work diligently to detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells in the United States and abroad."

But the case unraveled on several fronts.

The lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino, was removed late last year and is being investigated for misconduct. He, in turn, has filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department and accused his superiors of retaliating against him after he agreed to testify before the Senate Finance Committee about terrorism. The committee's chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and a persistent critic of the Justice Department, has characterized Mr. Convertino as a whistle-blower.

New prosecutors said at a hearing in December that they had discovered important evidence that had been withheld and should have been turned over to the defense, including material that raised questions about the credibility of the government's star witness.

At the hearing, the federal judge, Gerald E. Rosen, admonished Mr. Ashcroft for violating an order barring discussion of the case.

Judge Rosen also ordered a scouring of the case file, which lasted for more than six months before federal prosecutors recently turned over a substantial amount of new evidence to the defense. The evidence has not been made public because the judge has forbidden lawyers to discuss the case. Defense lawyers had been expected to refile a motion to dismiss the case based on the new evidence.

Justice Department officials did not return calls for comment.

The case began just six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when federal agents raided an apartment in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit with a large and prominent Arab-American community. The apartment had once been occupied by an Arab immigrant on the government's terrorism watch list, but agents instead found three Arab immigrants as well as forged passports and identification papers and more than 100 religious audiotapes espousing what the government said were radical views.

Agents also found a day planner with crude sketches that prosecution witnesses said included an outline of an American air base in Turkey used to patrol Iraq's no-fly zone. And they found what looked like a tourist's videotape that prosecutors contended was interspersed with video of sites including Disneyland and the New York Times building.

Posted by Konrad at 10:07 AM | Permalink