Mayfield describes 'humiliating' ordeal; FBI apologizes
07:34 AM PDT on Tuesday, May 25, 2004
From KGW.com Staff and Wire Reports
PORTLAND - A federal judge threw out the case Monday against a Portland-area lawyer arrested in connection with the Spain terror bombings, citing a fingerprint-identification error by the FBI and lifting a a cloud of suspicion that had surrounded the attorney since his arrest earlier this month.
Brandon Mayfield speaks after being cleared in the Madrid bombings case. (KGW Photo)
Brandon Mayfield, a 37-year-old American convert to Islam, thanked God for U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jones' ruling and the FBI offered a rare apology for mishandling the case.
"I'm in a healing process right now," Mayfield said following the decision, but he had some very harsh words about the Patriot Act and the material witness provision of the law that allowed him to be mistakenly held for two weeks.
Mayfield was released from custody late last week, but he was not altogether cleared of suspicion at the time.
The government had said he remained a "material witness" and put restrictions on his movements. Those restrictions were lifted Monday by Judge Jones.
"Due to the misidentification by the FBI of a fingerprint, the court orders the material witness proceeding dismissed," read a statement posted by Jones on the federal court's Web site. "The court orders all property seized to be returned to the material witness."
"I'm much closer to being exhonerated," Mayfield told reporters at a news conference on Monday afternoon.
Calling much of the federal government's war on terror -- and the Patriot Act in particular -- "a facade," Mayfield compared their actions in his case to those of Nazi Germany during World War II.
"I am a Muslim, an American, an attorney and an ex-officer of the U.S. military," Mayfield said. "I've been singled out and discriminated against, I feel as a Muslim."
He called his time in prison "humiliating" and "embarrassing" and said that he was concerned about "other material witnesses languishing away in detention centers."
"This war on terror has gone to the extreme and innocent people are victims as a result," he added. "What happened to me, it shouldn't happen to anybody."
Mayfield was arrested May 6, after FBI agents raided his home in Aloha. FBI officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters then that his fingerprint had matched one found on a bag of detonators near the train station in Madrid in the deadly March 11 bombing, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000 others.
But last week, Spanish authorities said the fingerprints of an Algerian man were on the bag; the FBI then re-examined the print and decided it was not Mayfield's.
FBI apology for botched fingerprints
For its part, the FBI offered a rare public apology for the botched fingerprint job in a statement issued to the media and at a subsequent news conference Monday afternoon.
"The FBI regrets the hardships this placed on Mr. Mayfield and his family," said Robert Jordan, the special agent in charge of the Portland field office. "We are not investigating Brandon Mayfield at this time."
Jordan said the FBI's initial determination about Mayfield's fingerprint was "based on an image of substandard quality."
The FBI said it planned to ask an international panel of fingerprint experts to review their examination in the Mayfield case.
Mayfield's sudden arrest, followed by the abrupt end to the case, raised serious questions about the FBI methods that linked the innocent lawyer to the terrorist attack that has been called Spain's September 11th.
Court documents unsealed
One of several court documents unsealed Monday, an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Richard K. Werder in support of the material witness arrest warrant, sheds some light on the case.
After a fingerprint analysis of the detonator bag, Werder said he was "advised that the FBI lab stands by their conclusion of a 100 percent positive identification."
The affidavit also notes that Mayfield's wife, Mona, was born in Egypt, and that Mayfield represented Jeffrey Leon Battle in a child custody case. Battle later was among a group of Portland men who pleaded guilty to conspiring to help al-Qaida and the Taliban fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The document also notes one phone call between Mona Mayfield and Pete Seda, also known as Perouz Sedaghaty, the director of the U.S. office of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Ashland. The Bush administration has designated the foundation as a terrorist organization.
Mayfield told KGW Monday night that he may sue the federal government for false arrest.
"A civil action is obviously something I'll be contemplating," he said.
Meantime, Mayfield's lawyers are seeking a probe into the FBI's actions to determine how the fingerprint could have been misidentified, as well as an investigation into leaks to the media in the case.
"We need to know more about how this happened. All of us in this country need to know more about how this type of mistake can be made," said Steven Wax, the chief U.S. public defender who represented Mayfield.
"The climate of fear of terror makes this a cautionary tale about the way in which that fear can ensnare an innocent person in the type of abuse to which Mr. Mayfield was subjected."
Wax said his client may have been singled out for investigation and subsequent arrest because he is Muslim. "It's a major civil rights issue," he said.
Mayfield believes he was not only arrested, but also subjected to so-called "sneak and peak" searches where agents break into a home but are under no obligation to tell the owner.
They are allowed under the USA Patriot Act, which Mayfield harshly criticized on Monday.
"You have to fight for your liberty," Mayfield said. "You can't trade your freedom for security or you'll lose both."
Family wants government apology
Reached by phone minutes after the announcement that her son was cleared, Mayfield's mother said the family wants an apology from the U.S. government.
Family members said that even after Mayfield's release last week, he was not allowed to leave Oregon and he had to ask for permission to leave his house.
"That's what we've been saying all along. It's not his fingerprint," said AvNell Mayfield of Halstead, Kansas. "He was falsely accused, and they still weren't letting him go."
"If it happened to you, wouldn't you expect an apology?" she said.
The family erupted in joy after the announcement, she said. Mayfield's son, Shane, and brother, Kent Mayfield, gave each other high-fives in the living room of the Mayfield's home.
"They're dancing and clicking their heels," Avnell Mayfield said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Gorder left a voice message on his answering machine stating that he would not be responding to media phone calls. Other calls to the U.S. Attorney's office on Monday for comment were not returned.
Mayfield, a former Army lieutenant who now runs a small Portland law office, was never facing any formal charges. He was arrested as a material witness, and held on the chance that he might have information about the Spain bombings.
But soon after his arrest, investigators in Spain told The Associated Press that they had doubts that the fingerprints found on the bag of detonators were Mayfield's.
Late last Thursday, authorities in Madrid confirmed that the fingerprints on the plastic bag belonged to an Algerian man named Ouhnane Daoud.
The bombings have been blamed on Islamic militants, with possible links to al-Qaida.
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