State: Family of detainee feels like suspects

Family of detainee feels like suspects

Supporters of Palestinian Mazen Al-Najjar say federal agents tried to intimidate them and make Al-Najjar look bad before a judge.

By SUSAN ASCHOFF

MIAMI -- Eleven-year-old Yara Al-Najjar has not hugged her father for more than a year. She has seen him only through plexiglass at a jail. So when he entered the federal courtroom before a hearing last week, Yara went to see him.

A federal agent stood and confronted her: "Take your seat."

She did, putting her head in her hands and sobbing.

Another officer, seated behind her, barked again. "Put your head up," he ordered.

She cannot understand why they were so cruel. "Why do they care if I cry?"

Her father, Mazen Al-Najjar, has been jailed almost three years without charges on secret government evidence that he is a dangerous associate of terrorists. He made his first appearance in federal court last week to ask a judge to free him.

Yara, her two sisters, her mother and about 30 members of their Tampa mosque and the citizens group Hillsborough Organization for Progress and Equality, or HOPE, traveled by bus from Tampa to show their support.

They were treated, they said, like suspects.

When the group of men, women and children walked onto the downtown courthouse plaza with signs reading "Free Mazen Now," a half-dozen U.S. Customs officers ran from the building to confront them.

When they complied with directions to move their protest across the street, a man they believed to be an FBI agent stood 6 feet away and snapped photographs, they said.

When they passed through the metal detector at the entrance to the courtroom, U.S. marshals required photo IDs of all but the children and wrote down names and birth dates. One woman said they noted her height.

"They are trying to intimidate us," said Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor and Al-Najjar's brother-in-law.

Al-Najjar, a 42-year-old Palestinian refugee, has been ordered deported for overstaying a student visa. His case is on appeal. He was denied bail by an immigration judge who heard government testimony in secret and found Al-Najjar to be a threat to national security.

Last week's hearing before U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard requested his immediate release on constitutional grounds: His right to due process was violated, his attorneys said.

Lenard will issue her written decision after further review.

Al-Najjar says he is not a terrorist. He was targeted by the U.S. government, he says, because he worked at a USF-affiliated think tank with Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who left Tampa in 1995 and a few months later became head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

On the day of his Miami court appearance, the government continued its attempts to make Al-Najjar appear disreputable and dangerous, his attorneys said.

Al-Najjar was transported on a commercial flight from a Bradenton detention facility after his attorneys made a formal request to the judge that he attend. He was awakened at 1 a.m. for a hearing scheduled at 4 p.m., his family and attorneys said. The flight takes an hour. He spent the day on a bench in a holding cell, said his attorney, Joseph Hohenstein of Philadelphia.

Al-Najjar wore the same shirt and slacks he was wearing when he was arrested three years ago. His wife, Fedaa Al-Najjar, said he told her he asked to at least wash the clothing, since it was wrinkled and smelled from being stored. Immigration and Naturalization Service officers at the jail refused, she said.

In the few minutes he was given with his attorneys before his court appearance, Al-Najjar was not permitted a conference room meeting but one separated from them by a cloudy glass partition.

"The goal was not to have him present himself as well to a federal judge," Hohenstein said, "and having a stressed-out, tired, ill-clothed individual certainly contributes to that. Fortunately, a federal judge is not likely to be swayed by such tactics."

Government officials said the measures are necessary for security.

Names of spectators have been taken at other hearings, said John Amat, a deputy U.S. marshal for the Southern District of Florida. The U.S. Marshal's Service is responsible for security at the federal courthouse.

"We're entitled to check people who come into the courtroom whenever we feel the need to do it," Amat said.

At a federal trial that convicted 11 gang members on drug and murder charges in March, several spectators whose names were taken at the door were arrested on outstanding warrants after they were run through the computer, Amat said.

A defense lawyer at that trial said taking names is not typical at the Miami courthouse.

"It bothers me because it is a public forum," said Albert Levin. "I think it's overreaching."

Those entering the hearing last week passed through a metal detector, emptied their pockets and submitted briefcases and handbags for searches. Amat said he could not comment on whether the taking of names and birthdates was a decision made by the U.S. Marshal's Service or done at the request of the FBI or INS.

At the Bradenton jail where Al-Najjar has been detained since his May 1997 arrest, supervisor David Wing said he was never asked about clothing for Al-Najjar. He said he did not know why Al-Najjar was awakened three hours before departure.

Al-Najjar's family says it is because the government wanted him to look like a terrorist in court. And it wanted his friends to feel intimidated.

"I felt it was humiliating for us. All the next day I kept thinking, "Why are you doing this to us?' " Mrs. Al-Najjar said. She said she was told she could not bring her husband clothes. After the hearing, she and her daughters rushed to see Al-Najjar before he was taken away.

"Come, Safa," Mrs. Al-Najjar told her 4-year-old, whom she held in her arms. "We're going to see Baba." But the INS agents would not let them get close.

"They don't have any mercy in their hearts," Mrs. Al-Najjar said.

Neither she nor her children have had a contact visit -- time with a detainee in a visitors' room without a wall and window separating them -- since May 1999, she said.

The deplorable treatment of Al-Najjar is typical of the government's attitude, said Andrew Kayton, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida working on Al-Najjar's case. Kayton, who lives and works in Miami, said he has never seen the names of courtroom spectators written down.

"Part of this is the culture of INS detention. The game is depersonalization and debasement," said Kayton. "This is a terrible thing. This has caused inexcusable harm to his children."

The hearing's timing may have prompted some of the scrutiny. Last week marked the anniversary of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

No one balked at walking through a metal detector.

But taking names suggests everyone in attendance could be investigated. It has a "chilling effect on free speech and makes the Muslim and Arab community more fearful," said Hohenstein.

What is insulting, said members of the group, is the attitude that every Arab is dangerous, every Muslim suspect.

HOPE member Richard Condon said he noticed that the school girls wearing traditional Muslim head scarves took longer to get through the security checks than did he, a white adult male. One girl was told she could not bring in the folded American flag she carried.

Pulling her to the side, Condon said, "Give it to me." He passed through the checkpoint without a second glance.