Posted on 09/04/2004 3:55:06 PM PDT by buccaneer81
FBI investigates whether jailed Somali abused Saturday, September 04, 2004 Kevin Mayhood THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Nuradin Abdi’s family members say he has been physically and mentally abused since being jailed in late November.
The FBI is investigating the treatment of a Somali man while he was jailed for seven months on immigration charges, immediately before he was charged with conspiring with others to blow up a Columbus shopping mall.
Investigators are looking into whether Nuradin Abdi’s civil rights were violated while he was housed in jails in Seneca, Pickaway and Franklin counties.
Abdi’s family says agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement took away a healthy man when they arrested him in November. But the man they saw in June muttered, stared and tapped his head on the table during two hearings in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
A court-ordered mental evaluation has been completed, but federal officials and Abdi’s attorney, Mahir T. Sherif, would not disclose the results.
Sherif said he will seek further mental evaluations of the 33-year-old Abdi.
"We believe he is seriously ill and needs treatment," Sherif said. "We continue to have questions about what happened during those seven months — particularly at the end of those seven months."
Abdi was held in county jails after his arrest on immigration charges on Nov. 28, except when he attended two hearings in the Detroit Immigration Court, said Douglas Weigle, his immigration lawyer. An immigration judge determined that Abdi lied on his application for asylum and on March 9 ordered him deported.
A federal indictment charging him with conspiring with admitted al-Qaida member Iyman Faris, a Columbus truck driver, to detonate a bomb in a shopping mall, was unsealed June 14. Faris is serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison. Federal agents continue to tail a third Columbus man they think may have been part of the plot, said sources who spoke on condition they not be named.
Abdi’s family and supporters have called the case a "witch hunt" and want to know whether he was mistreated while in jail or driven to abuse himself.
"You’ve heard about ghost detainees at Abu Ghraib?" Sherif said. "He was a ghost detainee here in the United States. They booked him as John Doe, kept him in a room by himself, and the jailers referred to him as John Doe."
A Franklin County deputy sheriff said Abdi was in the county jail when the indictment was unsealed and Abdi returned to Columbus on Aug. 3, where he is now.
Jailers in Seneca and Pickaway counties referred questions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Agency spokesman Gregory Palmore said privacy laws prevent him from releasing information telling where Abdi was held when. However, he said the FBI is looking into Abdi’s treatment while he was being held.
Abdi’s family was unable to visit him from the day he was taken until May 21, when his mother and wife drove to the Pickaway County jail in Circleville.
They said he slouched in a chair and was disoriented. They repeatedly called to him, and when he finally looked up, his eyes were swollen shut. But then, they said, more than a dozen guards piled onto him, knocking him to the floor. The pair said they were pushed out of the room.
Jail officials have denied any abuse and declined to discuss Abdi.
Weigle last saw Abdi 11 days earlier, at the same jail.
"The whole time I dealt with him, from when I first met him to our last meeting, he was absolutely fine," Weigle said. "He was a perfect gentleman, coherent, articulate. There was no problem."
A source said Abdi had several violent episodes in the Pickaway County jail, sometimes biting guards, and was physically restrained. After one such episode, the jail asked federal authorities to move him elsewhere.
At the end of May, a medical evaluation of Abdi found no physical problems, officials have said.
Sherif said Abdi’s treatment from the day he was taken and the reasons for his bizarre behavior should come to light.
"Was it the fact he was held in solitary, was it the pressure of what was going on?" Sherif asked. " . . . What kind of interrogation did he go under?"
Michael Mee, the special agent in charge of the Columbus FBI office, declined to comment.
Sherif said Abdi’s family members have tried to visit him each Thursday and Sunday since his return to Columbus but, officials tell them he doesn’t acknowledge anyone so they won’t bring him to the visiting area.
kmayhood@dispatch.com
This man IS mentally ill...why waste tax dollars on the bizarre claims of the "disturbed"?
Execute him and deport his family back to Somalia.
How could they tell he was healthy? They're all too skinny, and, in my daughter's words "smell like hamsters."
That's an insult to hamsters everywhere. LOL!
Sounds like they're getting ready to sue. Edwards will take his case after he loses the election.
This is the result of the media using Abu Grahib agaisnt the Bush admin. Every terrorist murderer will now claim abuse..
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