[Steven_K]

So I came accross the story of Abdallah Higazy. He is an Egyptian national who was staying in a hotel in New York on 9/11. After the attacks his hotel was evacuated and in his room was found a device that is used to communicate with airline pilots. He was arrested on suspicion of involvement with the attacks. While in prison, he confessed to various accessory crimes. A few days later, a pilot came by the hotel asking for a radio he had forgotten. The entire case was bullshit, and Higazy succesfully sued the FBI and US government for coercing a confession from him.

The really interesting part is how they got the confession. The FBI told him that if he didn't confess to the crime his entire family in Egypt would be arrested and tortured:

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton [the FBI agent] 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.

During his testimony, Higazy commented on why this lead him to confess:

The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is —they’re suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam’s security force—as they later on were called his henchmen—a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word ‘torture’ comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn’t imagine them doing anything to my sister.

[L]et’s just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be —might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn’t going to risk that. I wasn’t going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that’s convincing? And I said okay.

So that is pretty fucked up, but it is great that he succesfully sued and won. The next interesting thing happens after the ruling. The court record gets posted online and some legal bloggers who follow going-ons in New York download it and display some of the outrageous aspects. Then, very soon after it was posted, it gets taken offline. The court contacts the bloggers and asks them to remove their copies, and they refuse. The next day, a redacted version gets posted with only the part where the FBI threatens to have his family tortured taken out. Instead it only reads:

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.

For more: http://www.psychsound.com/2007/10/a_tal ... r_how.html

[Noelnada]

Don't wonder why some people want to become real terrorists and waste their own life with that kind of "Two weight , Two measures" .