1115.org

Completing my trifecta of detainee stories, here are the travails of Benamar Benatta. (I wanted to post all three stories on Friday, but you know how it is. So many abuses, so little time.)

It took his lawyers only five years to get him out of the clutches of Attorneys General John “Let the eagle soar” Ashcroft and Alberto “Click your heels” Gonzales. Maybe the honor roll should also include National Security Advisors Condoleezza “Designer footwear” Rice and Stephen “Who the hell knows” Hadley.

I entirely forgot to mention that there wasn’t a shred of evidence against him, but maybe at this stage of TWAT I didn’t really need to tell you that?

The short version of his story is that Benatta was an avionics technician with the Algerian Air Force sent to the U.S. for military surveillance and anti-terrorism training (how’s that for irony?) with a Virginia-based defense contractor. While here he became a “conscientious objector” and decided to apply for refugee status in Canada rather than return to the Algerian Air Force. What he was guilty of was really bad timing. He arrived at the Peace Bridge at Niagara Falls (from the U.S. to Canada), on Sept. 5, 2001. He was arrested by Canadian authorities because “he was carrying false U.S. identification cards, including the social security card he had used to get work as a busboy in New York City after his visa expired”. On September 12, he was transferred to FBI custody as a Suspicious Person (he was an Arab and all, you know), apparently in violation of Canadian law. (Why should we be the only ones who end up smelling like the opposite of a rose as a result of actions taken as part of TWAT?)

Over to the Toronto Star, which reported as follows on July 27, 2006:

He was finally allowed to leave a U.S. immigration lockup late last week after his lawyers brokered a deal with Canadian immigration authorities to let him pursue the refugee claim he originally began at the Peace Bridge days before the 9/11 attacks.

In his first interview with a Canadian newspaper since his release, Benatta, 32, told the Star yesterday that the legal details of his Sept. 12, 2001, transfer to the U.S. are still murky. At the time, there was no law in place allowing Canadian officials to return refugee claimants suspected of terrorism to the U.S., as there now is under post-9/11 provisions of the Immigration Act.
[…]
Within days of the attacks, Benatta found himself in solitary confinement under abusive conditions — some of which are documented in court filings — south of the border.

“They told me I was being transferred to another detention centre within Canada,” he said. “I knew I was in the States when I found myself in front of the U.S. Customs officers. I was in some sort of shock.”

Canadian immigration officials said yesterday they could not comment on the specifics of Benatta’s case; the Canadian Department of Justice, which usually handles extradition issues, did not return calls for comment.

U.S. court documents from a 2003 judge’s inquiry into Benatta’s treatment state that “Canadian authorities alerted United States authorities of defendant’s presence and profile … and returned him to the United States.”
[…]
In the days that followed (his transfer to FBI custody), he was interrogated extensively and shuffled between U.S. immigration and criminal law enforcement officials. At no time was he given access to a lawyer, a fact confirmed in the court documents. (Interjection: this was a “terror suspect” held on U.S.soil within the U.S. justice system, not a grey area enemy combatant held in Guantanamo Bay or some super-secret CIA prison in parts unknown. American Justice is dead! Long live American Justice!)

What transpired during those days is a blur for Benatta, but court filings say he was “spirited off” to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility normally used to house crime suspects, not immigration detainees.

Even though Benatta was cleared of terror links in November 2001, he was left to languish at the Brooklyn jail until the following April. (Interjection: he languished in U.S. custody for almost five more years.)

“There was constant abuse at that time. For instance, they hit your head, every half hour they came, they wake you,” he said. “During the first month I wasn’t allowed to shave or wear shoes. There was no recreation. I was locked up 24 hours, with a light 24 hours. When they escort you outside, they hit your head, they twist your hands, they step on the shackles sometimes, they want to trip you,” he said.

Benatta also said jail guards wrote the letters `WTC’ on his cell door to mark his connection to the World Trade Centre investigation.

In 2004, Benatta’s allegations of abuse in custody were presented to a human rights panel of the United Nations by attorneys of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The group later accused the Bush administration of subjecting him to eight months of a “high security prison regime … that could be described as torture.”

“I ran from my country, where I was persecuted over there and there was threats against my life,” he said. “I was expecting to come here and find America or Canada, they open their arms to me. I came here to forget what happened to me back home … and get on with my life.”

A federal magistrate who looked into Benatta’s claims wrote in 2003 that he had been “held in custody under harsh conditions which can be said to be `oppressive.’” He recommended that Benatta be released, saying he had been “undeniably deprived of his liberty.” (Interjection: Funny how all these stories have totally predictable plot elements. It is not recorded if anyone said “Bugger the judge!”, but we did keep on buggering Benatta for three more years, give or take.)

The fact that Benatta had been held on alleged immigration charges after he was cleared of terror links prompted the magistrate to call the prosecution’s case a “ruse,” a “sham” and a “charade.”

“The FBI would have been derelict in its duty if it did not pursue an investigation of the defendant after the Canadian authorities contacted the U.S. officials on Sept. 12, 2001,” he wrote, adding: “Absent due process, the end cannot justify the means no matter how well or good intentioned the parties may be, for as the adage teaches, `the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

In spite of the magistrate’s recommendations, Benatta was held at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility while he fought the American attempt to deport him, until last week.

Are you ashamed of being an American yet? If not, there’s one thing you can count on. This government is going to go on piling straw after straw on your back. Every person has their breaking point. And it looks very much like the Bush-men have decided to break every last one of us. Stay tuned.