The FBI, Torture, and The Court Opinion That Wasn't

This story is just starting to get some blogospheric attention. Long story short: the FBI forced an Egyptian named Abdallah Higazy to confess to aiding in the 9/11 attacks. The evidence they had was a radio found in his NYC hotel room on 9/11 that is used to talk with airline pilots. They coerced the confession out by threatening the deportation of his family to Egypt, where they were likely to be tortured. It turns out Higazy was completely innocent of the charges. This resulted in a series of lawsuits where Higazy sought punitive damages. What came out at trial was that the entire thing was a Three's Company-like misunderstanding.

So Higazy "confesses" and he's processed by the criminal justice system. His future is quite bleak. Meanwhile, an airline pilot later shows up at the hotel and asks for his radio back. This is like something out of the movies. The radio belonged to the pilot, not Higazy, and Higazy was free to go, the victim of horrible timing. Higazi was innocent! He next sued the hotel and the FBI agent for coercing his confession. The bottom line in the Court of Appeals: Higazy has a case and may recover damages for this injustice.

That Appeals Court opinion, from the Second Circuit, was released late last week.

As I read the opinion I realized it was a 44 page epic, too long for me to print out. I blogged about the opinion while I read it online and then posted the blog as I ate lunch. Then something strange happened: a few minutes after I posted the blog, the opinion vanished from the Court of Appeals website! I had never seen this before, and what made all the more strange was that it involved a coerced confession over 9/11. What the hell was going on?

The problem was that the Second Circuit Court opinion wasn't redacted, so they pulled it back. When it reappeared, all the information about how the FBI extracted the false confession from Higazy was removed. In its place was this: "This opinion has been redacted because portions of the record are under seal. For the purposes of the summary judgment motion, Templeton did not contest that Higazy's statements were coerced."

The unredacted opinion, released the day before and mirrored by the legal blog How Appealing, is here (PDF). They actually CALLED the blogger asking him to remove the opinion, and he refused; good for him, because through his efforts we know a little more about how our government operates. The FBI is using Mafia tactics here, folks, threatening the family of suspects to get false confessions. And saying that they'll deport a family to a country that tortures is little different from doing the torturing here; it's merely a question of outsourcing. That familiar Bush phrase "we do not torture" should be appended with the phrase "on U.S. soil"; anywhere else is fine.

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.”

Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.”

Jim Henley, Matt Yglesias, and believe it or not, Patterico have more. This should get a lot more attention.