New York, NY –
The federal government has agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle the lawsuit of five men who say they were treated like terrorists in a Brooklyn Detention Center. WNYC's Marianne McCune reports:
The men were jailed for immigration violations after the September 11th attacks, but they were held in high security and Bill Quigley of the Center for Constitutional Rights says they were physically and mentally abused.
Bill Quigley: They were thrown up against walls, they were tripped, they were shoved, they were shackled in ways that were very painful.
REPORTER: Quigley says the settlement is not the largest in the world, but it's a start toward making the government accountable. More detainees are part of the class action suit and Quigley hopes the case will force former Attorney General John Ashcroft and others to testify. Another similar lawsuit has so far failed in that regard. A 2003 report from the Justice Department's Inspector General found that detainees at the Metropolitan Detention Center were mistreated. But under the terms of this settlement, the government admits no fault. And a spokesman says the Justice Department has no comment. For WNYC, I'm Marianne McCune
Marianne McCune is a staff reporter for New York Public Radio (WNYC 93.9FM/AM820) and contributes regularly to National Public Radio and Public Radio International. She thinks of the New York Metropolitan Area as the center of the world because that's how she covers it: more than a third of New York residents were born in another country and Marianne reports on the resulting cultural, economic, and political links between New York/New Jersey and almost everywhere else on earth.
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