June 3, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 2, 1424

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WASHINGTON, June 2: Foreigners detained as part of the investigation into the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States were held too long without being charged and subjected to “unduly harsh” conditions of confinement, a US Justice Department audit report, released on Monday, said.

The audit by the department’s inspector general found “significant problems” in how authorities handled the 762 foreigners who were detained for immigration violations during the investigation into the hijacked airliner attacks.

Some detainees were locked up almost continuously, were moved around in handcuffs and leg irons, subjected to abuse and had their cell lights kept on day and night.

“While our review recognized the enormous challenges and difficult circumstances confronting the department in responding to the terrorist attacks, we found significant problems in the way the detainees were handled,” Inspector General Glenn Fine said.

The 198-page report focused on detainees held in Brooklyn, New York, and Paterson, New Jersey. The inspector general chose the sites because they held the majority of Sept 11 detainees and were also the focus of many complaints of mistreatment.

It said the FBI made little effort to distinguish between foreigners who were subjects of the terrorism investigation and those found accidentally as agents followed up on a lead.

“Even in the chaotic aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks, we believe the FBI should have taken more care to distinguish between aliens who it actually suspected of having a connection to terrorism from those aliens who, while possibly guilty of violating federal immigration law, had no connection to terrorism,” the inspector general said.

The report said immigration authorities did not tell the detainees of the charges against them within normal specified timeframes, affecting their ability to understand why they were being held and limited their ability to obtain lawyers.

In addition, the Justice Department implemented a policy of holding the detainees until they were cleared by the FBI.

“The policy was based on the belief — which turned out to be erroneous — that the FBI’s clearance process would proceed quickly,” the report said.—Reuters