Detainee’s Release May Be Coming

Accused of having ties to terrorists and being a national security risk but convicted only of living in the United States illegally, a Buena Park man could soon be released after 20 months in jail.

Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan’s hopes have been buoyed by a federal magistrate’s recommendation last week that he be released and by an appeals court ruling in the case of a Sri Lankan immigrant.

“I am very excited and hope that a judge will see that my incarceration is unjust,� Hamdan, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent, said in a telephone interview from jail. “I want to go home to my wife and children.�

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey W. Johnson said that Hamdan’s “indefinite detention� was unreasonable and violated a 2001 Supreme Court ruling. Johnson forwarded his 12-page recommendation to U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Hamdan’s case has been a rallying cry for critics of the Bush administration’s practice of using terrorism allegations to arrest Muslims. In almost every case, suspects are not charged with terrorism but instead are prosecuted for immigration law violations and held without bond.

Hamdan has been locked up at the immigration detention facility at Terminal Island after he was arrested July 27, 2004, convicted of living illegally in the United States and ordered deported. Normally, he would qualify for bond pending deportation, but Department of Homeland Security officials said he should remain jailed because of his alleged ties to terrorism and for being a security threat.

Hamdan worked as a fund-raiser for the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity U.S. officials shut down in December 2001 for allegedly raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian organization the U.S. State Department has designated as terrorist. He was arrested along with three other foundation leaders.

Although Homeland Security officials said Hamdan, 45, had ties to terrorism, he was charged only with violating immigration law. He was convicted of overstaying the student visa he received in 1979. His three co-defendants were charged with terrorism-related crimes. They were released on their own recognizance after a federal judge ruled that the government had failed to prove they were flight risks and a threat to national security.

Johnson said that keeping Hamdan locked up violates a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting an immigrant’s indefinite detention. A U.S. District Court judge will decide if Hamdan, an engineering graduate of USC, should be freed while awaiting deportation. Hamdan’s lawyers have also filed a habeas corpus petition to obtain his release.

Hamdan’s appeal appears to have been strengthened by a March 7 ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Ahilan Nadarajah.

After Nadarajah was arrested in October 2001 in San Diego, immigration judges twice awarded him political asylum. But Homeland Security officials kept him jailed on grounds that he was a terrorist and national security threat while they appealed his grant of asylum.

The court ruled that Nadarajah’s lengthy incarceration was unreasonable.

“The government does not possess the authority under the general detention statutes to hold Nadarajah, or any other alien who is similarly situated, indefinitely,� the panel said in a 37-page ruling. It also called Nadarajah’s detention of nearly five years “plainly unreasonable under any measure.�

Nadarajah walked out of jail Tuesday, on his 26th birthday, wearing the same clothes he wore when he was arrested almost five years ago. Like Hamdan, Nadarajah was represented by the ACLU in Los Angeles.

ACLU attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham who represented Nadarajah, said the 9th Circuit ruling is one of the first successful challenges to the Bush administration’s policy of indefinite detention of immigrants.

As they did in Nadarajah’s case, U.S. officials say they have the authority to keep Hamdan locked up while appeals are pending.

Officials at the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment. In 2005, an immigration judge ordered Hamdan deported for being in the country illegally. However, the same judge then blocked immigration officials from sending him to Jordan -- a U.S. ally -- on grounds that he would be tortured there.

Hamdan, who helped found a mosque in Anaheim, is being held without bond while Justice Department lawyers appeal the order that stopped the government from sending him to Jordan. His wife and six American-born children visit him in jail four times a week.

Johnson wrote that Hamdan’s continued detention violates the Supreme Court ruling that an immigrant can be detained for only six months following a judge’s deportation order if U.S. officials cannot find a country that will accept him. Johnson said it is unlikely that another country would accept Hamdan after American authorities tied him to terrorism.

Johnson said that U.S. officials could have continued Hamdan’s detention if Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales had certified him a national security threat under the Patriot Act.

The judge said failure to use the law suggests that the “government does not now believe [Hamdan] is a significant threat to the security of this country.�

Because Johnson’s finding is only a recommendation, attorneys for Hamdan and the government must file responses by April 10.

Hamdan said he did not know if any money he raised went to Hamas. He said it was supposed to go to Palestinian families.

“I was proud to help my people, but in a legitimate way. As far as I know, Holy Land was an American charity abiding by American laws,� he said.