Supreme Court rejects claims against Ashcroft
WASHINGTON -- A closely divided Supreme Court on Monday threw out a Pakistani man's civil rights claim against former attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller for abusive treatment he says he received when arrested with other Arab Muslims in New York after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The court voted 5-4 — with the more conservative justices in the majority — that the man failed to present enough facts early in the case that his treatment in detention arose from policies Ashcroft and Mueller created and directed that discriminated based on race or religion. The more liberal justices dissented, saying the former detainee had made concrete allegations and the majority's standard could make it harder for victims of government wrongdoing to bring claims of constitutional violations.
Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani Muslim working as a cable television installer on Long Island, was arrested by federal agents at his home in late 2001 and held for several months at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Iqbal was among hundreds picked up and questioned in the New York area as possibly connected to the attacks.
Iqbal, charged with fraud related to his identification papers, says he was designated a person of "high interest" and transferred to a special detention unit solely because he is an Arab Muslim. He says he was subjected to harsher conditions, including abusive strip searches and beatings.
A 2003 Department of Justice inspector general report found widespread abuse of detainees at the Brooklyn center, and numerous individual lawsuits related to treatment there are pending.
Iqbal, who was deported to Pakistan, sued 34 current and former federal officials and 19 prison officers. Monday's case involved only the claim against Ashcroft and Mueller. Iqbal says that they were the architects of policies that labeled Arab Muslims persons "of high interest" and that they knew of abusive conditions such men faced.
The case centered on how much information Iqbal had to produce to have his case against Ashcroft and Mueller heard. Lower federal courts had ruled that his claim could go forward.
