Justice Department sets hearing for Islamic charity co-founder
By The Associated Press
09.26.02
Editor's note: On Oct. 24, the Bush administration asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the government's argument that the deportation hearings for Rabih Haddad should be closed.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said yesterday that it will hold a new immigration hearing for the co-founder of an Islamic charity who has been in federal custody since December.
Substantial portions of the hearing, to be held before an immigration judge, will be open to the public in compliance with a court order to hold such a hearing or release Rabih Haddad, said Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock.
"We are happy that the government has chosen to abide by the district court's order," Ashraf Nubani, an attorney representing Haddad, said last night. "We do welcome the opportunity to present his case and establish the fact the he is not a danger to national security or a flight risk."
Comstock said the hearing would be Sept. 30; a location was not specified. But Nubani said it would be Oct. 1 in Detroit, where Haddad's previous hearings have been conducted.
The department also will appeal the court ruling, arguing that it's an unwarranted intrusion into immigration procedures entrusted to the executive branch of government.
Previous detention hearings for Haddad, of Ann Arbor, Mich., were held in secret, prompting lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union, several newspapers and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.
Comstock said the Justice Department may seek to close portions of next week's proceeding if sensitive information will be introduced that could prove valuable to terrorists.
Haddad has been in federal custody since his Dec. 14 arrest on a visa violation.
"An open detention and removal hearing will assure the public that the government itself is honoring the very Democratic principles that the terrorists who committed the atrocities of 9/11 sought to destroy," U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds said in a ruling last week.
She gave the government until tomorrow to release Haddad or conduct the new hearing.
The same day that Haddad was arrested, the Treasury Department froze the bank accounts of his Global Relief Foundation and agents also raided its suburban Chicago office.
The Bush administration has said it suspects Global Relief of having ties to terrorism, but no criminal charges have been filed against Haddad or the foundation, which Haddad helped found in 1992.
Global Relief, based in Bridgeview, Ill., says it provides food, emergency relief, medical aid and education training in more than 20 countries, including Pakistan, Iraq and Chechnya.
Haddad, a Lebanese citizen living in the United States on an expired tourist visa, has been jailed in Monroe County, Mich., since his arrest.