US Settles with 9/11 Detainee

As reported by the Guardian — but largely ignored by the U.S. press — the U.S. government agreed Monday to pay $300,000 to an Egyptian man detained in New York following the 9/11 attacks and held in solitary confinement for 10 months without charge. The settlement is the first of its kind.

The man, Ehab Elmaghraby, was one of 762 non-citizens, nearly all Arab or Muslim, who were detained but never charged in connection with 9/11. A number of the men were deported on immigration violations. Elmaghraby says he was beaten while shackled, confined in a maximum-security cell for up to 23 hours a day, and submitted to repeated strip searches.

Although the terms of the settlement did not require the U.S. government to admit wrongdoing, it will almost certainly strengthen the similar lawsuits that are currently pending, the most significant of which is a 400-detainee federal class-action filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights. That lawsuit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, alleges:

that the INS arrested this group on the pretext of minor immigration violations and secretly detained them for the weeks and months the FBI took to clear them of terrorism, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law. The suit further charges that some of these detainees were improperly assigned to the Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit (ADMAX SHU), kept in solitary confinement with the lights on 24 hours a day, placed under a communications blackout so that they could not seek the assistance of their attorneys, families, and friends, subjected to physical and verbal abuse, forced to endure inhumane conditions of confinement, and obstructed in their efforts to practice their religion.

Additional details of the lawsuit, as well as a report by the DOJ Inspector General that supports the plaintiffs’ claims, are available at the CCR website, here.