[NT Times - 11/28/01] WASHINGTON ‹ Faced with growing criticism over his refusal to identify people jailed since the Sept. 11 attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft today provided for the first time the names of 93 people charged with crimes arising from the government's investigation.
Mr. Ashcroft also released an accounting of the 548 people ‹ most from Middle Eastern countries ‹ who remain in custody across the United States on immigration charges that arose in the terror investigation. But that list included only the nationalities and the charges ‹ not the names.
Still, today's announcement was the Justice Department's most detailed disclosure about the people who have been arrested in the terror investigation, and it follows several days of harsh criticism by elected officials, civil libertarians and others of the government's tactics.
Mr. Ashcroft spoke a day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to being a series of hearings into the government's law-enforcement efforts, ranging from the detention of hundreds of people on immigration charges to the ongoing interviews of 5,000 young Muslim men.
The committee's chairman, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, has been among the most persistent critics of Mr. Ashcroft's tactics, and the attorney general's comments today seemed designed to deflect some of the criticism the Bush administration is likely to face. [News analysis, Page B7.]
Mr. Ashcroft, who is expected to testify before the committee next week, acknowledged the criticism today, but insisted that rights have been protected. "While I am aware of various charges being made by organizations and individuals about the actions of the Justice Department," he said, "I have yet to be informed of a single lawsuit filed against the government charging a violation of someone's civil rights as a result of this investigation."
Of the 93 people named as criminal defendants, about 60 are in custody, according to a Justice Department list. The others have been released on bond or are still being sought. None have been charged directly with terrorism or involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. [Page B6.]
Most of the charges are relatively minor, like credit card fraud or making false statements when applying for passports. One man, Souhail Sarwer, is a fugitive wanted on charges of credit card fraud.
But Mr. Ashcroft pointed to several who seemed to have links to the 19 men suspected of hijacking the four planes used in the Sept. 11 attacks. One man, he noted, was charged with helping two of the suspected hijackers obtain fraudulent identifications cards, while the names of two other men were found in a car left by another suspected hijacker at Dulles Airport.
One of the men whose name was found in the car, Osama Awadallah, a 21-year-old college student, was granted bail today in New York by a federal judge who questioned the strength of the government's case against him. Mr. Awadallah has been charged with lying before a grand jury when he denied knowing Khalid al-Midhar, one of the men suspected of hijacking the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and prosecutors had sought to hold him without bail.
But the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled that he could be released on $500,000 bond, saying, "this defendant is charged with making false declarations ‹ not with terrorism, or aiding and abetting terrorism, or conspiring with terrorists."
The identities of many of the 93 people had already been released, including the 22 men charged in October with obtaining fraudulent licenses to drive commercial trucks loaded with hazardous materials. Most of those men were charged in Pittsburgh, and remain in custody.
While providing the new numbers and details, Mr. Ashcroft continued to withhold the identiies of 548 people arrested for immigration violations. He said he was only required to release the names of those charged with criminal violations except for 11 people whose arrests have been sealed by a federal judge.
Mr. Ashcroft said that some of the 600 people in jail were members of the Al Qaeda organization and their arrest had probably foiled additional terrorist attacks. He would not say how many or give their names but law enforcement officials suggested they were mostly the 11 held under seal, mostly in New York.
Mr. Ashcroft asserted that the law allowed him to withhold the names of the people charged under the immigration code, and they were identified in a separate list only by their place of birth, the immigration violation they are charged with and the date they were arrested. Of the 548, the greatest number, 208 were from Pakistan with the next largest, 74, from Egypt.
Mr. Ashcroft seemed irked with the complaints about the Justice Department's withholding details. He said he was not releasing the names of those charged with immigration violations because it would aid Osama bin Laden by disclosing to him which of his associates were in custody.
"I am not interested in providing, when we are at war, a list to Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network of the people we have detained that would make any easier their effort to kill Americans," Mr. Ashcroft told reporters.
"We might as well mail this list to the Osama bin Laden Al Qaeda network as to release it. The Al Qaeda network may be able to get information about which terrorists we have in our custody, but they'll have to get it on their own."
On Monday, he had said that he would not release the names of those arrested because it would violate their privacy rights and would damage their reputations by putting them on a kind of blacklist.
Mr. Ashcroft's actions today did not appear to silence some critics. Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, said, "While I appreciate the Justice Departments finally providing a rough estimate of the number people who are currently in detention, I continue to be deeply troubled by its refusal to provide a full accounting of everyone who has been detained and why."
Mr. Feingold said that the administration's behavior about releasing information on the detainees was part of a larger problem involving plans for military tribunals and authorizing eavesdropping on conversations between some lawyers and terrorist suspects.
Mr. Ashcroft today sought to portray the administration's actions as well-aimed at what he said was the government's greatest priority, preventing future terrorist actions.
"We are standing firm in our commitment to protect American lives," he said. "The Department of Justice is waging a deliberate campaign of arrest and detention to protect American lives and we're removing suspected terrorists who violate the law from our streets to prevent further terrorist attack. We believe we have Al Qaeda membership in custody, and we will use every Constitutional tool to keep suspected terrorists locked up."
He said that all of those detained had access to a lawyer and were able to contact their families.
There are 10 to 15 defendants who are still being held as material witnesses, most in a federal detention center in New York. Among them is Zacarias Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent who was arrested in Minnesota on Aug. 17. Senior Bush administration officials are debating whether to make Mr. Moussaoui the first person to be tried on terrorism charges before a military tribunal.
The group also includes Nabil al- Marabh, a former Boston cabdriver whom an informer linked to Osama bin Laden, and Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Azmath, two men who were carrying box cutters and at least $5,000 in cash when they were arrested aboard a train in Texas on Sept. 11.
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[posted 11/28/01]
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