Six Iraqi Dissidents Refused Entry to the U.S. on Secret Charges

By Kate Seelye

Calling the case a “stain on the honor of the United States,” former CIA director James Woolsey recently agreed to help defend six Iraqis ordered deported back to their homeland on charges of being national security risks.

Woolsey got involved in the case after a Los Angeles immigration judge in early March denied asylum to the men, who were brought to the U.S. after working for CIA-backed Iraqi opposition groups. The judge’s classified ruling was based largely on secret evidence presented by FBI agents in closed court hearings.

At a press conference outside the Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in San Pedro, CA, where the Iraqis have been held more than a year, Woolsey told reporters his clients had been denied basic rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

“[Supreme Court Justice] Felix Frankfurter said 50 years ago that fairness is rarely obtained by secret one-sided determinations of fact,” said Woolsey, a Washington lawyer.

The government’s presentation of secret evidence against the Iraqis made it nearly impossible for attorneys to defend their clients, who all deny being spies and say they will be executed if returned to Iraq.

After reading the public part of the judge’s ruling, Niels Frenzen, the lawyer for five of the six men, said, “We are no further along in understanding what the charges are against my clients today then we were on March 28, 1997 when this case began.”

More than a year ago, the six men were brought to California with their families by the U.S. government. They were part of a group of 6,500 Iraqis, mainly Kurds, evacuated from northern Iraq by the U.S. in the fall of 1996 after Saddam Hussain’s tanks rolled into the Kurdish capital, Irbil, smashing the Iraqi opposition.

Along with thousands of others, the men fled the region with their families, fearing for their lives. All six had worked to undermine Saddam Hussain’s regime as members of one of two CIA-funded Iraqi opposition groups, the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi National Accord.

The U.S. flew the refugees—including not only opposition members, but employees of U.S. and international organizations in the north—in three waves to the island of Guam for INS processing. There, FBI agents questioned Iraqi opposition members, reportedly flagging for more questioning those who had served in the Iraqi military or who had spent time in Iran or Syria.

The INS then identified 25 individuals it said did not qualify for asylum for reasons ranging from mental instability to sedition. Accompanied by their families, the men were placed in INS detention centers in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas for hearings before immigration judges. Their wives and children were later granted asylum.

While 13 of the 25 have since been given asylum following court hearings, the rest have either been ordered deported or are awaiting judges’ decisions. The six in Los Angeles are unique because their cases have entailed the use of secret evidence.

These men say not knowing the charges against them has been one of the hardest parts of their incarceration. They came to the United States thinking they would be greeted as heroes for working to topple America’s enemy. Instead they were locked up and accused of being national security risks, without knowing any of the evidence against them.

“Where is the justice?” asked detainee Ali Yassin Mohammed Karim, after learning of the judge’s decision to deport him based on classified testimony. “I heard that America believed in justice, democracy and human rights, and I saw the opposite.”

The 35-year-old Kurdish doctor treated members of the Iraqi National Congress in Irbil, as well as the occasional CIA officer. Today, he says that if he wants to see a doctor outside of the INS facility for his kidney problems, he has to submit to wearing ankle chains—an indignity he refuses.

“How can they treat me like a criminal when I have done nothing wrong?” he asked.

All of the detainees have been battling with depression; one attempted suicide last summer. Particularly difficult for them has been the separation from their wives and children who are scattered around the country, some as far away as Nebraska.

“The family members are going nuts,” says attorney Frenzen. “Our clients think their husbands have been given execution orders.”

In addition to the anxiety they feel for their husbands, whom many haven’t seen in more than a year, the wives have had to cope with adapting and raising their children alone in a foreign country where they don’t speak the language. Some have reacted to the stress with chronic illness.

However, the news of Woolsey’s addition to the defense team has heartened most involved in the case.

INC leader Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, who testified in immigration hearings on behalf of the three detainees belonging to the INC and who solicited Woolsey’s participation, believes the addition of the former CIA director breathes new life into the case.

“A lawyer of his stature who has national security clearance can rebut the charges before the court,” said Chalabi.

It remains unclear whether or not Woolsey’s security clearance will give him access to the classified material which will allow him to present a more informed ap peal before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Because the case is in the immigration court system, which is managed by the Justice Department, it is up to Justice Department officials—possibly Attorney General Janet Reno herself—to decide whether or not to accommodate Woolsey’s request for the evidence.

“Although immigration law is different on procedural issues than criminal law or civil law...all of us inside and outside the government need to work hard to see to it that these men are dealt with fairly,” Woolsey stressed at the press conference.

Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenburg, however, insisted that the fact that 13 of the Iraqi detainees have been granted asylum only proves the system is fair.

“Judges have not been rubber-stamping the government’s case against these men,” noted Brandenburg. “The law is written to keep dangerous people out of the country and to protect the lives of those who provided secret testimony. It has been used sparingly.”

Whether or not it has been used appropriately is another matter. A case in point is the story of former detainee Hashem Hawlery, a journalist with the Iraqi National Ac cord, who was granted asylum by Judge D.D. Sitgraves after more than a year in detention.

The INS incarcerated him, saying it was considering bringing security charges against the longtime Kurdish activist. During Hawlery’s final cross-examination in court hearings, it became clear that the INS’s principal challenge to his credibility had to do with what they called his membership in the “KLM.”

When Hawlery denied in court being a member of the “KLM,” the “Kurdish Liberation Movement,” the INS called forward the FBI agent who questioned Hawlery in Guam. She testified that Hawlery had in fact repeatedly referenced “KLM,” during three days of questioning in Guam.

But as Hawlery, who has been involved in Kurdish opposition groups, including the Kurdish Democratic Party, for almost 30 years laughingly recalls, “There is no group called the ‘Kurdish Liberation Movement.’ How can I be a member of something that doesn’t exist? They didn’t understand my story.”

“At one point,” said Frenzen, “Hawlery whispered to me that KLM was a Dutch airline and asked me if I thought the INS was asking about the airline.”

Hawlery’s interpreter in Guam later testified that he himself had created the initials “KLM” to refer to Hawlery’s general work in the Kurdish movement.

Judge Sitgraves recognized there had been a misunderstanding and ruled against the INS. Nevertheless, Hawlery’s false association with a fictitious organization had led the FBI to label Hawlery a problem case, landing him in detention for a year.

Attorneys for the remaining six believe charges against their clients stem from similar mistranslations and FBI ignorance about Iraqi politics, as well as what many refugees have said was rampant finger pointing among the evacuees during the questioning in Guam.

In the meantime, the six Iraqis behind bars are struggling to come to terms with what is expected to be a lengthy wait, regardless of Woolsey’s clout in Washington.

“I want my freedom, but what can I do, I’m not superman,” said Dr. Karim wearily.

Though there is also talk of pursuing asylum for the men in third countries, Dr. Chalabi says it’s unlikely a third country will take them if the U.S. has classified them as security risks.

Unless Woolsey can successfully rebut the charges against the men, “Their choices are life in a U.S. prison or death in Iraq,” Chalabi added.

Kate Seelye is a journalist in Los Angeles.