Terrorist suspects locked up tight: investigators believe only about 10 percent of the people detained have critical knowledge of terrorist operations. Others simply are caught in unfortunate circumstances

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 26, 2001 | by Timothy W. Maier

Some of the cases have moved forward and bond hearings were held, says INS spokesman Russ Bergeron. Since Sept. 11, the INS has held 202 suspects; as of the end of October it had freed 23. "They were released on bond or simply let go," he says.

However, attorneys for detainees tell INSIGHT that some who posted bond have yet to be released. Despite court orders calling for such detainees to be released, the INS has refused to honor those orders, Butterfield says. "The INS can't do that, but they are doing it anyway." Unfortunately, she says, the detainees quickly are transported out of state, and the lawyers can't find their clients.

The INS acknowledges that it is sorting out some of these problems, and it seems clear that at least some of those being detained may have had direct links to the hijackers. In fact, the New York Times recently reported that some of those being detained made "congratulatory telephone calls" after the attacks. The FBI apparently had some of them under surveillance and intercepted the calls, which led to their arrests. While those transcripts have not been made public, the Times reported that law-enforcement officials characterized the calls as "gloating."

Many of the detainees are being held in federal INS facilities, although some have been placed in local jails. The Justice Department is holding most of them on immigration violations or as material witnesses. One material witness was 23-year-old Saudi student Yazeed Al-Salmi, who recently was released from the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center after missing three weeks of school and being evicted from his San Diego apartment. He had been held to testify before a grand jury about an encounter with one of the hijackers. After spending 17 days in a detention cell, he told the Washington Post, "They don't call you by name. They call you [expletive] terrorist."

Reports out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center say detainees are being denied exercise, given foods that their religion prohibits them from eating, kept in cold cells with only one blanket and subjected to strip searches twice a day. In a Dallas jail a Saudi national reportedly was held for a week without a mattress, blanket, cup or clock.

Perhaps the most serious case may be the condition of five Israeli teen-agers reportedly on the verge of collapse after their incarceration in New York City on charges of plotting to blow up a bridge on Sept. 11. Katie Shmuel of the Galilee town of Yokne'am has told Israeli reporters that her son, Yaron, is in "a very critical psychological situation" and has not been allowed to have visitors. She says her boy and the others were on the George Washington Bridge at the time of the terrorist attacks when the FBI received a warning that terrorists in a white van were out to blow up a bridge. The boys were stopped

and arrested. The FBI claims to have found a large sum of money and two razor knives in the van.

"For the first few hours they were tied up with no clothes and no food" the distraught mother says, insisting they are not terrorists. The Israeli Consulate in New York has become involved but says that Sept. 11 changed the way the United States deals with detained terrorist suspects. Every request must go through the FBI and the State Department's legal team, which has been time-consuming.