Ashcroft Won't Name Terror Detainees
By KAREN GULLO, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General
John Ashcroft said Monday
he won't release the names of those detained
since the Sept. 11 attacks because it would
violate their privacy and possibly aid Osama
bin Laden .
``I'm not going to develop some sort of
blacklist,'' said Ashcroft.
The refusal came as the terrorism investigation
advanced overseas and a federal agent in
Virginia described a possible motive of one of
the hijackers.
Civil rights groups critical of Ashcroft's refusal
to release more information about more than
1,100 people detained or arrested in the terrorism investigation pounced
on his remarks.
``We're shocked that suddenly Ashcroft declares that he has concerns
for the rights of people in detention,'' said Christine Doyle, research
director at Amnesty International, which alleges that detainees have
been subjected to a variety of rights abuses.
As the debate over detainees sharpened, an FBI
official said suspected terrorist ringleader Mohammed Atta, thought to
have piloted a hijacked plane that slammed into the World Trade
Center, considered the United States a menace to the world.
``Atta felt that the U.S. was responsible for most of the wars being
fought in the world,'' FBI Special Agent Jesus Gomez said Monday
during an abbreviated preliminary hearing for Agus Budiman, an
Indonesian man whom prosecutors believe is a close associate of Atta.
Budiman, 31, had contacts with Atta and another hijacker, Marwan
al-Shehhi, Gomez told a judge at Budiman's detention hearing in
Alexandria, Va. He did not specify how he learned of Atta's beliefs
about America.
Budiman was also associated with Ramsi Binalshibh, who the FBI says
was meant to be the 20th hijacker. Binalshibh twice tried unsuccessfully
to use his association with Budiman as a means to enter the United
States, Gomez said.
Binalshibh, a Yemeni citizen who had been living in Hamburg, is the
subject of an international manhunt.
Budiman is facing unrelated document fraud charges, but prosecutors
suspect that the man Budiman allegedly helped to obtain a fake Virginia
ID card, Mohammad Bin Nasser Belfas, is a contact for Osama bin
Laden.
Budiman's court-appointed attorney recused himself after Gomez
testified about the man's links to the terrorists. The lawyer, a retired
Army officer, said he had friends who died Sept. 11 when hijackers
crashed an American Airlines jet into the Pentagon .
Ivan Yacub, Budiman's immigration lawyer, said Budiman only knew
Atta casually and had not seen Atta since he came to the United States
in October 2000.
The terrorism investigation moved ahead in Spain, where a top police
official said two key suspects in Spanish custody met in Madrid shortly
before the Sept. 11 attacks and knew that the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon were targets.
``The leaders of these organizations may not have known the details, but
they did know the targets that were to be attacked,'' said national police
chief Juan Cotino.
The Spanish probe is focusing on Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas,
implicated as leader of eight suspects indicted in Spain last week on
suspicion of helping to prepare the attacks, Cotino said.
In the United States, more than 1,100 individuals have been arrested or
detained by federal and state authorities investigating the terrorist attacks
on New York and Washington. Most are being held on immigration violations; others are charged with
unrelated criminal offenses or are being held as material witnesses.
Civil liberties groups and members of Congress have asked the Justice Department to disclose information about the detainees, where they are being held and whether they have been
released. The department has demurred, citing grand jury rules, judges' orders and privacy concerns.
Ashcroft has never publicly cited privacy rights until now.
``The law properly prevents the department from creating a public blacklist of detainees that would violate their rights,'' Ashcroft said at a news conference called to announce his appointment of a special
master to oversee compensation to victims of Sept. 11.
Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said some of the detainees are believed to have possible terrorist connections, but they will have been unfairly labeled if their names are released and they are eventually cleared.
Ashcroft said no one has been detained who has not violated some federal law, and no detainee has been denied the right to contact a lawyer. ``They are not being held in secret,'' he said.
Providing a complete list of the detainees, Ashcroft said, also might be helpful to Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. authorities have named as the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
``If he wants such a list, he'll have to try and assemble it himself,'' Ashcroft said.
The Justice Department is preparing an updated accounting of the numbers of those who have been detained for immigration violations and on federal charges and will release it later this week, Ashcroft said. But names will not be provided.
``We believe that when we have arrested violators of the law that we think have been associated with terrorists, that that is a valuable component of defending the United States of America,'' he said.
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