Lawsuit: Prison officials prevented Muslim detainee from practicing faith

By The Associated Press

09.10.02

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NEW ORLEANS — An Egyptian national who was detained after the Sept. 11 attacks was prevented from practicing his Muslim faith, denied access to a lawyer for two weeks and given repeated body cavity searches while in a federal prison in Louisiana, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf.

The lawsuit was filed yesterday against the warden and other officials of the federal prison at Pollock over the treatment of Hady Omar, 23, who was arrested Sept. 12 on immigration violations in Fort Smith, Ark., and held until Nov. 23. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages of more than $1 million.

Dan Dunne, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.

The federal lawsuit, filed in Alexandria by the San Francisco-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, alleges that guards performed repeated body cavity searches on Omar, one of which was videotaped and witnessed by a crowd of laughing male and female government officials.

Prison officials also are accused of ridiculing Omar while he prayed and serving meals that contained pork without telling him, causing him to unwittingly violate his Muslim beliefs. Guards violated his religious freedom by refusing to tell him the time or date, which caused him to pray at improper times and break the traditional Ramadan fast, the suit said.

"This type of treatment simply cannot be justified for innocent immigrants," said Robert Rubin, one of Omar's lawyers. "To subject an innocent immigrant like Mr. Omar to such abuse can only be explained by a post-9-11 desire to punish and humiliate those who we seek to blame for the terrorist acts."

After Omar was arrested, an immigration judge granted a request by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to keep him in custody because of possible links to the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. While at Pollock, Omar was under 24-hour observation in a cell that was brightly lit around the clock, the suit said.

Omar was released on bond and is now in deportation proceedings. INS agents have argued he should be deported because his first marriage was fraudulent — a charge Omar denies. An immigration judge was scheduled to rule Sept. 30 on whether he will be deported.

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