DETROIT, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union Tuesday filed suit seeking to open deportation hearings for the founder of an Islamic charity suspected of supporting terrorist activities.
The suit stems from the detention of Rabih Haddad, founder of Global Relief Foundation of Bridgeview, Ill. Haddad was arrested last month after the federal government froze Global Relief's assets. The group filed its own suit against the federal government in Chicago on Monday, claiming it had been defamed.
The ACLU suit was filed on behalf of Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Detroit News and the Metro Times, an alternative weekly. They were among hundreds turned away from three recent deportation hearings involving Haddad.
"The administration and the attorney general have taken a series of constitutionally dubious actions that place the executive branch in the untenable role of legislator, prosecutor, judge and jury," Conyers said.
"If hearings of this nature are being conducted in secret, how can we be sure that our justice system is really working and that detainees are being treated fairly?" asked Kary Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan.
The ACLU called the closed hearings un-American.
Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the national ACLU, said First Amendment law calls for court proceedings to be open.
"The Justice Department's policy of blanket secrecy is unconstitutional and incompatible with the values of a free society," he said.
"This country has run well on a foundation of an open government and an open judiciary," Mark Silver, publisher and editor of the Detroit News, said.
Shapiro said if the ACLU prevails, the ruling could open court proceedings in deportation cases around the nation. More than 400 people -- mainly Muslims -- have been detained since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Haddad, 41, a Lebanese immigrant, was arrested Dec. 14, eight months after he applied for permanent residency, and held without bond. His tourist visa expired in 1999.
"It seems that government is concocting a case as it moves along," Haddad attorney Ashraf Nubani told a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing. "This is like Alice in Wonderland. First the sentence, then, maybe, a trial."
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had generally refrained from initiating deportation proceedings against immigrants living in the United States while their applications for permanent residency were pending, the ACLU said.
Haddad was living in Ann Arbor, Mich., before his arrest. His wife, Salma Al-Rushaid, said she has heard little from him since he was transferred to federal custody in Chicago, pending a grand jury appearance. She told the Ann Arbor News that in their last conversation he informed her his telephone privileges had been cut to just 15 minutes a month.
"I feel like a prisoner in my own home every day, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for some answers," Al-Rushaid said.
Haddad's next scheduled hearing is scheduled Feb. 19 and the ACLU hopes for a ruling on its petition before that. The suit also seeks access to transcripts of Haddad's previous hearings and any other documents related to the proceedings in his case.
Friends describe Haddad, the oldest son of Beirut merchants who was educated at U.S. schools, as a law-abiding family man. His brother Mazen, 34, a consultant in Toronto, said Haddad first became intrigued by Islam when he was 17.
Although Haddad has a degree in engineering, he had been teaching twice a week at the Michigan Islamic Academy, which focuses on the history of Muslim society and the Koran.
Haddad applied for permanent residency last spring as did his wife, whose visa also expired in 1999. Of the couple's four children, only the youngest was born in the United States and not subject to deportation.
The suit names Attorney General John Ashcroft, Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy and Immigration Judge Elizabeth Hacker.
