The ACLU is today filing a suit alleging that the Bush administration has asked other countries to hold terror suspects whom the U.S. lacks the evidence to charge.
The poster boy for the case is Naji Hamdan, an American Muslim, who, reports McClatchy, has been held for nearly three months in the United Arab Emirates without charges, access to a lawyer, or contact with his family.
“If the U.S. government is responsible for this detention and we believe it is, this is clearly illegal because our government can’t contract away the Constitution by enlisting the aid of other governments that do not adhere to the Constitution’s requirements,” an ACLU spokesperson told McClatchy.
An FBI spokesman said: “The FBI does not ask foreign nations to detain U.S. citizens on our behalf in order to circumvent their rights.”
Hamdan served on the board of a Los Angeles mosque, and had originally been questioned by the FBI about possible ties to Osama Bin Laden as early as 1999. He moved with his family to the UAE in 2006, and was arrested by local law enforcement in August of this year.
Hamdan’s family, which is bringing the lawsuit, says he’s no friend of OBL. “Naji hates war. He hates what happened on September 11. He hates terrorism,” his wife told McClatchy.