Former terror suspects allege abuse in US

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , NEW YORK
Tuesday, May 04, 2004,Page 6

Before the World Trade Center attack, Javaid Iqbal was a Pakistani immigrant proud to be known as "the cable guy" to customers on Long Island, where he had lived for a decade and married an American. Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian, had a weekend flea market stand at Aqueduct Raceway and a restaurant near Times Square where friendly police officers would joke: "Where's my shish kebab?"

But within weeks of Sept. 11, 2001, both had been picked up by federal agents in an anti-terror sweep. For 23 hours a day, they were locked in solitary confinement in the harsh maximum-security unit of a federal detention center in Brooklyn -- the one cited by the Justice Department's inspector general last year for widespread physical abuse of its detainees.

The inspector general mentioned no specific names and cases, but now, in a federal lawsuit that was to be filed yesterday and in telephone interviews from Pakistan and Egypt, the former cable technician and the former restaurateur have provided the most detailed personal accounts yet of the unit's brutality and the first to accuse specific correction officers and wardens of abuse. The accusations are similar to those now being made against military officers guarding prisoners in Iraq.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/04/2003154087

has been going on for a very long time. Unfortunately, this sort of behavior is nothing new here or in Iraq.

Most people would be physically sick if they knew the sort of things that go on in our own country. This didn't just start after 9-11, it's just the people who engage in this behavior, finally had a better excuse.