US detention plan criticized

Followup to earlier report rips response

By Curt Anderson, Associated Press, 9/9/2003

WASHINGTON -- The government is not moving quickly enough to address problems revealed in a report documenting mistreatment of some of the hundreds of foreigners detained after the 2001 terror attacks, Justice Department investigators said yesterday. Glenn A. Fine, inspector general of the agency, also said investigators have discovered additional evidence of "verbal and physical abuse" of some detainees at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York. No details were included. A final report on that investigation will be released soon.

In the analysis released yesterday, Fine found that the Justice and Homeland Security departments had fully implemented only two of 21 recommendations made in the earlier report.

"We are pleased that both agencies are taking the recommendations seriously," Fine said. "However, a number of the recommendations are not addressed with sufficient specificity, and significant work remains."

The earlier report, released in June, found that many of the 762 illegal aliens were held until cleared by the FBI of any terrorism connections.

That process sometimes took months, despite a law requiring most aliens to be deported or released within 90 days.

The follow-up analysis said the Justice Department still has not adequately addressed how to separate these "special interest" detainees from aliens not suspected of terrorism ties. The analysis faults the agency's plan for quickly determining whether detainees have any connection to terrorism and questions whether the FBI can devote enough resources to the task.

A Justice Department policy in place since September 2002 calls for the deputy attorney general to approve new additions to the special-interest list. Fine's analysis said that policy "may not be adequate" in a future crisis because of the sheer number of people involved.

Fine's report urges the FBI to figure out how to assess a detainee's terrorism risk quickly -- 24 hours is the recommendation -- so the Bureau of Prisons or immigration authorities can determine whether the person should be kept in maximum-security custody.

The FBI has balked at committing to such a short time frame, in part because proper investigation may not be possible and because of concerns that sensitive national security information might get into too many hands, according to a Justice Department response.

The earlier report also identified a "pattern of physical and verbal abuse" by guards at the Brooklyn facility, who were accused of slamming prisoners against walls and walking on their leg chains.

The Justice Department is working with immigration officials, who are now part of the Homeland Security Department, on specific ways of sharing information to avoid conflicts and delays in alien detentions involving terrorism. The inspector general has asked for such agreements in writing by Oct. 3.