ACLU/SC Pushes Anew for Release of Detained American as New Document Shows U.A.E. Cooperated in U.S. Rendition Program

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is asking a federal District Court in Washington D.C to provide access to key information exposing the United States’ role in the detention, torture and prosecution of an American citizen in the United Arab Emirates.

Naji Hamdan, a Muslim American auto-parts businessman who lived in the Los Angeles area for two decades, was detained last year by the U.A.E. at the behest of the U.S. government and severely tortured. He is now facing a June 14 trial in the U.A.E. on unspecified charges of promoting terrorism that appear to be based on false statements obtained through torture.

Included in the request to the District Court filed Tuesday is a document obtained by the ACLU/SC demonstrating that the U.A.E. has acted as the U.S. government’s proxy to detain people for extraordinary rendition in the past. The newly obtained document shows that U.S. officials communicated to Interpol that they intended to carry out an extraordinary rendition of an individual -- not Hamdan -- in U.A.E. custody with the help of Emirate Airlines in 2005.

“This document clearly shows that the U.S. has cooperated with the U.A.E. to engage in proxy detention in the past,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants’ rights and national security for the ACLU/SC. “Sadly, Naji Hamdan’s case makes clear that the U.S. is continuing to engage in such human rights abuses under the Obama administration.”

Also included in the request is information about concerns recently expressed by members of Congress over the U.A.E.’s poor human rights record after a videotape surfaced that captured a member of the Emirati royal family brutally torturing a detainee. Amnesty International has extensively documented the U.A.E.’s practice of torturing prisoners and, in particular, state-security detainees such as Hamdan.

These disturbing revelations, coupled with Hamdan’s looming trial in the U.A.E. and his own account of torture at the hands of U.A.E. officials, have led the ACLU/SC to send a petition bearing more than 1,000 signatures to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to intervene on Hamdan’s behalf to ensure that evidence obtained through torture is not used against him.

“Our government can no longer stay silent in the face of the mistreatment of its own citizens, particularly where they were detained at the behest of their own government,” Arulanantham said. “Given the extremely credible allegations that Hamdan was tortured while in U.A.E. custody, the U.S. must now use its influence to get him out of prison in the U.A.E., or at least ensure that evidence obtained through torture is not used against him in trial.”

In November, the ACLU/SC filed a lawsuit seeking Hamdan’s release. The lawsuit alleges that the United States asked the U.A.E. to detain and interrogate Hamdan -- knowing that he would be tortured -- so that the United States could avoid the constitutional protections Hamdan would have been afforded if detained and charged here at home.

Hamdan, who was born in Lebanon and became a U.S. citizen, managed the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, a mosque and community center. He suffered through years of surveillance and harassment by the FBI that began shortly after the agency increased monitoring of Muslim groups in the United States in the wake of 9/11. In 2006, he decided to relocate his family and business to the U.A.E. In 2008, FBI agents traveled from Los Angeles to the U.A.E. to question Hamdan further. Six weeks later he was detained by agents of the U.A.E.’s state security forces.

SANTA ANA, Calif. – The Orange County District Attorney's Office dismissed the case against five clients of the ACLU of Southern California on Thursday after a Superior Court judge refused to include them on a preliminary basis under the provisions of a sweeping gang injunction. The case against 57 other individuals named in the injunction was likewise dismissed.

The case marks one of the few times that individuals named in a gang injunction have been able to obtain legal representation and defend themselves against the charge they are gang members and should have their activities severely restricted. It also calls into question how many other times young men and women around the region have been unfairly subjected to the overly broad restrictions typically imposed by gang injunctions, said ACLU/SC Staff Attorney Peter Bibring.

“This decision shows that the district attorney's „guilt-by-association - strategy won't stand up in court,” Bibring said. “By dropping the case against anyone who offered a defense, the district attorney has conceded the weakness of his case and that he cast too wide a net.”

Erika Vanessa Aranda, Louis DeHerrera, Patrick Philip DeHerrera, Roy David DeHerrera and an unnamed juvenile were among 115 people that Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas had designated in his proposed injunction as among the “most active participants in” the Orange Varrio Cypress gang. Rackauckas has accused the gang's members of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, terrorist threats, robbery, drug sales and other crimes.

“The district attorney would not have dismissed our clients – and so many others -- if there was any evidence that they were dangerous,” said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, a staff attorney for the ACLU/SC's Orange County Office. “Their dismissal undermines his earlier claims that the people named in the injunction were all active and dangerous members of a gang.”

In the case of Aranda, Rackauckas's office attempted to link her to the gang even though she has never claimed gang membership, has never participated in a gang and has never been convicted of a crime. The district attorney based proof of her membership on three minor incidents, including a charge of trespassing for walking through an abandoned building in a short cut to a school in her neighborhood.

Touted by law enforcement officials as tough and necessary crime-fighting tools, aggressive gang injunctions have been used largely in poor communities of color with little proven effect. They raise issues of racial profiling even as they criminalize everyday activities such as visiting parks and associating with family and friends. In pursuing the injunctions, law enforcement agencies have eroded community trust and endangered the constitutional rights of nongang members to move freely and associate with whomever they like.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – In response to information provided at a press conference held by the El Monte Police Department today, the ACLU of Southern California is releasing the following statement from Executive Director Ramona Ripston:

“We are pleased that the officer who was caught on videotape brutally kicking a prone suspect who had apparently surrendered has been removed from active duty. We are also pleased that the El Monte Police Department has asked the Sheriff’s Department to conduct a review of the incident.

“However, we have sent a letter to Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, asking him to look immediately into this extremely troubling incident to see if criminal charges are warranted. We hope that Mr. Cooley will agree with us that the incident recorded on videotape appears to be an egregious example of police abuse, and that the residents of El Monte deserve a thorough and timely investigation of this action by one of their police officers.”