Court: Ashcroft not immune to lawsuit
Monte Asbury says:
Ashcroft’s justice department detained people it wanted locked up, using a “material witness” law. But this one was never called as a witness, and the court holds the “material witness” policy was a hoax.
Ashcroft subject to lawsuit by man who cites Justice policies
(CNN) — Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is not immune from being sued by a man who says he was illegally detained under Justice Department policies implemented after the September 11 terror attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The man, a native-born U.S. citizen who was once a college football star, was held and interrogated by the FBI for 16 days in 2003 and his travel was limited for another year, court documents said.
Abdullah al-Kidd’s
arrest warrant was based on an FBI affidavit that said he was needed to testify at the trial of a Saudi man who had been indicted on visa fraud. Al-Kidd was never called as a witness
The decision said that “al-Kidd’s arrest functioned as an investigatory arrest or national security-related pre-emptive detention, rather than as one to secure a witness’s testimony for trial.”
Read more at www.cnn.com
