After seven months, man has freedom but not answers

Immigration authorities will not comment on his case.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO and ABBIE VANSICKLE, Times Staff Writers
Published October 20, 2007

Iyad Abuhajjaj, 37, poses for a portrait outside the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Tampa. Abuhajjaj has been released from Krome Detention Center in Miami, following 7 months of detainment throughout Florida. He said he was not told why he was being held during that time.
	[Ross Mantle | Times]

TAMPA -- Iyad Abuhajjaj walked out of jail last week with as many questions as he had when he went in 7-1/2 months earlier.

Over those weeks, he had been questioned by police detectives, FBI agents, newspaper reporters and attorneys. Every part of his life from birth to now was spilled and discussed in detail with strangers. And yet, he says, he never got the answer he craved: Why was he held by immigration authorities 3,000 miles from home?

He lost 20 pounds, his job in California, his car. He prayed every day for God to release him in time to celebrate the last day of Ramadan with his wife, Karen.

He got that wish, reunited with her the day before the end of the Muslim holy month, but not much more.

"Seven and a half months of my life are wasted," he said this week during a stop in Tampa. "Taking me away from my family, my work, my clients, my friends, my soccer team, my singing choir."

Justice Department and immigration officials won't talk about his case. One of his attorneys said he thought the government was trying to recruit Abuhajjaj to be an informant. Another attorney thinks bureaucracy played a role.

On Tuesday, 37-year-old Abuhajjaj boarded a Southwest Airlines plane, bound for San Jose, Calif., where he lives. A thousand times he wondered whether he shouldn't just drive cross country instead. It was, after all, a Southwest flight that led to his incarceration in the first place.

Water pooled in his eyes when he thought about what might happen next.

* * *

The details of that first Southwest flight on Feb. 28 come from Abuhajjaj, a physical therapist who works with the developmentally disabled.

He wanted a Florida vacation.

On the flight from San Jose to Phoenix to Tampa, he went to the restroom and stretched his legs and was told to be seated. On his laptop, he watched scenes from a movie he acted in: The Strange Case of Salman abd al Haaq, a film by two Stanford University students about terrorist torture.

When he landed, police questioned him about the flight and the movie. They found a warrant for his arrest out of Okaloosa County. A Florida woman he met online accused him of accessing her AOL account without her permission, according to documents. Abuhajjaj said he thought the charges had been dropped.

He was jailed in Tampa but was moved to Okaloosa County.On March 14, he pleaded not guilty, posted $20,000 bail and expected to be released. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security took him into custody and shipped him to the Wakulla County Jail in Crawfordville.

* * *

What are my charges? he wanted to know. Why am I being held?

Abuhajjaj tried to see into the minds of his questioners for answers. Two men who introduced themselves as FBI agents grilled him for four to five hours.

"They talked about my life," he remembered this week, "since I was born to the day I met them -- Palestine, Israel, my travels elsewhere, my stay in America, my activities, my work."

Abuhajjaj's attorney wrote in court documents that Abuhajjaj believed he was being detained to force him to spy on fellow Muslims.

The same month Abuhajjaj was arrested in Tampa, Hamas terrorists killed his nephew while trying to kidnap Abuhajjaj's brothers, both of whom work for the Palestinian National Authority police, records show.

Federal prosecutors argued in court filings that it was time to boot Abuhajjaj from the United States. He had come here with conditional residency in 2000, married to an American. But in 2001, he was convicted of stalking the same woman, now his ex-wife. He said he was merely being insistent, as is expected of men in his homeland. The concept of stalking, he said, was new to him.

The government ordered his deportation after the 2001 conviction, documents show. While Abuhajjaj was free on bail and living his life in San Jose, he spent three years appealing the government's decision on grounds of changed political conditions.

In 2005, he got a break: An appeals court granted a stay, allowing him to remain.

But amid reapplying for asylum in 2007 came his Florida arrest. Abuhajjaj was dangerous, prosecutors argued, and his most recent charge in Florida showed a pattern that should not be ignored.

* * *

Growing up in Rafa, Gaza, Abuhajjaj was kidnapped and tortured more than once, according to Justice Department records. He threw rocks at Israelis during demonstrations against Israeli occupation in 1987, records said. He was shot in the leg walking home from school at age 19. As recently as 2000, he told authorities, an Israeli officer detained him, asking him to provide information about the Palestinian National Authority.

When Abuhajjaj came to the United States to live, he says, he did so seeking refuge. "I wanted peace," he said. "I had a very tough life back home. ... I wanted to come and just have a better life."

* * *

In June, while Abuhajjaj was still in the Wakulla County Jail, the Justice Department found that he had successfully demonstrated cause to reopen his request for asylum from persecution. He fears Hamas, they said.

In August, without explanation, authorities took him to Miami's Krome Processing Center, an immigrant detention center. A few days later, he entered a deal with Okaloosa prosecutors, pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of "attempting to access a computer without authorization" in exchange for time served.

It would be another two months before a judge would grant Abuhajjaj what he really wanted: freedom.

On Oct. 11, Abuhajjaj posted $25,000 bail and walked into his wife's arms.

"I think it was just bureaucracy," said Elias Shamieh, a San Francisco lawyer who will represent Abuhajjaj in the next phase of his asylum case in California. "He was bond-eligible from day one. He should not have been held in custody for this length of time."

The Homeland Security Department would not immediately disclose documents related to Abuhajjaj's case.

* * *

Iyad and Karen Abuhajjaj flew from Orlando to California on Tuesday aboard another Southwest flight. That was deliberate.

"I wanted to tell them that I've never done anything wrong," he said, "and I'm not afraid to fly Southwest."

He touched down in California. The Abuhajjajes made it home without incident.

"It feels good," he said Wednesday. "It's my own bed. I saw my cats. I'm very relaxed from the first minutes I came to my home."

Now, he will continue his plea for longer-term asylum. He will apply for a green card because he is married to a U.S. citizen, his attorney said.

He wants to stay. He thinks of the United States as his country. But he said he's still seeking the peace he wanted when he first arrived on American soil.

[Last modified October 20, 2007, 00:50:59]