Detroit

Closed immigration hearings for detainee unconstitutional

The government wrongly barred the public from immigration hearings for a founder of an Islamic charity who was detained after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal judge has ruled.

The closed hearings for Rabih Haddad were unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds said in a decision released Wednesday.

Three lawsuits challenging the closed hearings were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, media outlets and attorneys for Haddad. The government has not explained why it sought to bar the public.

“Openness is necessary for the public to maintain confidence in the value and soundness of the government’s actions,” Edmunds said.

The lawsuits were part of efforts to open secret court hearings following the terrorist attacks. Across the country, hundreds of similar hearings are pending for men of Arab descent.

New York

Alleged top al-Qaida figure pleads guilty to stabbing

A man accused of being part of Osama bin Laden’s inner circle pleaded guilty Wednesday to stabbing a prison guard in the eye with a sharpened comb, leaving him brain-damaged.

Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 45, entered the plea to conspiracy to murder and attempted murder in a heavily guarded Manhattan courtroom just a week before he was scheduled to go on trial in the Nov. 1, 2000, stabbing of guard Louis Pepe.

The stabbing occurred as Salim and four other men awaited trial on conspiracy charges in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Salim still faces trial in that case; no date has been set.

Washington

Guantanamo Bay detainee may be American citizen

The U.S. government may have in its custody a second American who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan, authorities said Wednesday after checking birth records that appear to support his claim that he was born in Louisiana.

The young man, identified by government officials as 22-year-old Yasser Esam Hamdi, was captured after a late November prison uprising at Mazar-e-Sharif, the same site where the military seized John Walker Lindh, a Northern Californian who fought for the Taliban.

Hamdi is one of 300 detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, authorities said. Army Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking, however, cautioned that U.S. authorities have not confirmed that Hamdi was born in the United States.

Washington

U.S. denies torture reports

Calling news reports “wrong and irresponsible,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied Wednesday that officials were considering torture as a way to get information out of captured al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah.

“Reports to that effect are wrong, inaccurate, not happening and will not happen,” he said.

Rumsfeld was responding to reports that Abu Zubaydah, captured Thursday in Pakistan, might be sent to a third country that uses more harsh interrogation techniques than allowed in the United States.

He declined to say where Abu Zubaydah is or who is questioning him.

Believed to be the most important al-Qaida figure captured in the anti-terror war, Abu Zubaydah is one of Osama bin Laden’s senior operational planners and a recruiter and was said to be planning new terrorist attacks.