It accuses the terrorist suspect's federal jailers of constant inhumane treatment in an attempt to "break him down" as he awaits trial.
By GRAHAM BRINK
Published May 28, 2004
TAMPA - The Council on American-Islamic Relations was denied a request this week to visit Sami Al-Arian to check on his physical and psychological condition.
Officials with the group said federal corrections officials did not give them a specific reason for the denial.
CAIR spokesman Ahmed Bedier said the group has received numerous complaints about conditions at the federal prison where Al-Arian and fellow defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh are being held. Bedier described the confinement as "un-American."
"We don't want any special treatment for Muslim detainees," Bedier said at press conference outside the federal courthouse in Tampa on Thursday. "We want equal treatment."
Federal agents arrested Al-Arian, Hammoudeh and two other men in February 2003 on charges that they supported and raised funds for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group.
The two other men were released on bail. Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor, and Hammoudeh were sent to the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County, which normally houses only inmates who have been convicted, not people awaiting trial.
Soon after they arrived, the men began complaining about everything from limits on their access to lawyers to constant strip searches. They said they lacked pencils to take notes and didn't have adequate access to law library facilities. Their defense attorneys complained that they had to wait up to two hours to see their clients. Most recently, the two defendants said two notebooks full of legal analysis vanished after guards searched the cell they share.
The judges overseeing the case remedied some of the complaints. U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas McCoun said in court recently that he remained skeptical about some of the other complaints, saying prison officials painted a different picture.
CAIR's executive director Nihad Awad said the conditions are set up to wear the defendants down. He said the two men are still strip-searched, at times even when they have not come in contact with any people from outside the prison.
"It sends a message that it's a deliberate act to break him down," Awad said.
Al-Arian's wife described the conditions as emotional and psychological torture. She said it is inhumane to keep a pretrial detainee in a cell for 23 hours a day. She said if her husband were not Muslim, he would not be treated so badly.
"It's a clear-cut case of discrimination," she said.
Al-Arian and the other men are scheduled to stand trial in January. The trial is expected to last at least six months.
