Home »
News &
Events » News Archive » 2000 Press Releases
Emergency Motion Filed in Federal Court Seeking Immediate Release
of Palestinian Jailed on "Secret Evidence"
December 8, 2000
MIAMI ? Two days after a Bradenton Immigration Judge ordered Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar's release on bond, lawyers for the 43-year-old man jailed for three-and-a-half years on "secret evidence" are still fighting to set him free, filing a motion today in U.S. District Court asking a federal judge to order the INS to comply with previous court rulings and to order his immediate release.
The 20-page request asks Judge Joan A. Lenard to schedule a hearing to set aside the INS's Board of Immigration Appeals decision to indefinitely stay Al-Najjar's release order. The emergency stay was granted less than 24 hours after Immigration Judge R. Kevin McHugh ordered that Al-Najjar be released on $8,000 bail. Attorneys for Al-Najjar also are requesting that Lenard order his immediate release from custody.
"Today we were forced to file an Emergency Motion with the federal district court in Miami seeking the immediate release of Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar," said Randall C. Marshall, Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "By refusing to release Dr. Al-Najjar following Wednesday's decision by the Immigration Judge granting bond, it is our contention that the INS is failing to comply with the orders of the federal court."
In May, Judge Lenard criticized the INS for detaining the Muslim cleric without allowing him or his attorneys the opportunity to review or rebut the speculative evidence that purportedly links him to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a group the United States government has designated as "terrorist."
Although she agreed with Al-Najjar's defense team that his due process rights were violated, she did not order his release, but remanded the matter to the Judge McHugh. In October, Judge McHugh ruled that the INS failed in a tenday public hearing to show that Al-Najjar posed any threat to national security.
Despite these significant legal gains, Al-Najjar continues to remain locked up in a Manatee County Downtown Facility, north of Sarasota, away from family and friends for yet another day. He is one of about two dozen immigrants detained on secret evidence. Most of the cases involve Muslims or Arabs who are alleged threats to national security, despite having never been charged with criminal activity.
The ACLU is strongly opposed to the government's use of secret evidence on the grounds that it violates due process rights and virtually eliminates any chance to mount an adequate defense. In December 1999, the ACLU secured the release of Egyptian immigrant Nasser K. Ahmed, an Egyptian man from Brooklyn who was detained in a Manhattan jail for nearly four years based on "secret evidence" the government refused to reveal.
In addition to its legal work on the issue of secret evidence, the ACLU is part of an effort to fix three 1996 laws that have already deprived thousands of immigrants of their civil and constitutional rights.
The campaign Fix '96: Restore America's Tradition as a Nation of Immigrants and a Nation of Just Laws was launched at a July 28 news conference by a diverse collection of national organizations. In addition to the ACLU, groups that have endorsed the campaign initiated by the National Immigration Forum include the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the AntiDefamation League and dozens of others.
Background
The lawsuit, Al-Najjar v. Janet Reno, was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Nationalities Service Center and Tampa-based attorney Martin Schwartz on behalf of Dr. AlNajjar, a former professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. His detention without bond in a Bradenton detention facility began on May 19, 1997 when INS and FBI agents stormed into his home and arrested him in front of his wife and three U.S.citizen daughters. Dr. AlNajjar has lived in the United States as a student, professor and community activist for the past fifteen years.
- To find out more about the campaign and what you can do to stop the use of secret evidence, click here.
- For on-line versions of both motions that were filed Dec. 8 in U.S. District Court, visit our Briefs and Complaints section.
