In what is being
called a sharply divided decision, the US Supreme Court has ruled that
former Bush officials can't be sued for abuse of terror suspects.
A ruling by the New York federal appeals court was
thrown out by the high court
due to lack of evidence. The original suit sought to bring charges of
abuse, and discrimination, against form Bush administration officials
such as FBI chief Robert Mueller, former attorney general John Ashcroft
and others.
The plaintiff, a Pakistani detainee named Javaid Iqbal, as the
court put it, "fails to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for
purposeful and unlawful discrimination against petitioners." Mr. Iqbal
was arrested, in 2001,on and immigration violation and in 2002 he was
incarcerated in New York maximum-security prison for 5 month.
Iqbal says that despite having no charges brought against him, he
was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and was repeatedly
strip searched. He says this was the plight of hundreds of Arab Muslims
and in his suit he attempted to show "...pattern of mistreatment of and
discrimination against Muslim detainees by Bush administration
officials as they conducted the "war on terror" and rooted out suspects
in the United States and abroad."
It was Mr. Iqbal's position that even though the defendants named
in the case did not personally handle the detainee's they were in fact
liable for the alleged mistreatment. The court ruled that Iqbal's
complaint "does not contain any factual allegation sufficient to
plausibly suggest petitioners' discriminatory state of mind." and that
"Respondent must plead sufficient matter to show that petitioners
adopted and implemented the detention policies at issue not for a
neutral investigative reason but for the purpose of discriminating on
account of race, religion, or national origin,."
The court said that after 9/11 more that 1,000 suspects were
questioned about links they had to the attacks and that the attacks
were carried out by Arab Muslims. Justice Kennedy wrote:
"it should come as no surprise that a legitimate policy
directing law enforcement to arrest and detain individuals because of
their suspected link to the attack would produce a disparate,
incidental impact on Arab Muslims, even though the purpose of the
policy was to target neither Arab nor Muslims."
Had Mr. Iqbal' won his case it would have paved the way for other cases
against former Bush-era officials. But with this ruling, from the
Supreme Court, the case now is headed back to the lower courts for
further review. This means the case is not closed but, detainee's and
human right groups view this a serious set back in their push to bring
charges against Senior Bush administration officials.