NEW YORK (AP) - Immigration authorities have released two 16-year-old Muslim girls who were detained for six weeks amid reports they were potential recruits for a suicide bomb plot that never materialized.
The girls - one from Bangladesh, the other from Guinea - were taken into custody separately in New York on March 24 and held at a detention centre. The Bangladeshi girl, her mother and two brothers left the country voluntarily on Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Manny Van Pelt said Wednesday.
The Guinean girl was released last week and was allowed to remain in the city but still faces removal proceedings, Van Pelt said in Washington, D.C.
Details about the case, first reported last month by The New York Times, remain sketchy.
The Times cited a government document that said the FBI believed the girls posed "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." Federal officials have refused to elaborate.
The girls' supporters insisted they were innocent. At a news conference on Wednesday on the steps of City Hall, human rights advocates demanded an apology.
"We're concerned about the veil of secrecy that has surrounded this case," said Mauri Saalakhan, of the Peace and Justice Foundation. "We're concerned about the injustice that has been done to the girls and their families."
ICE insisted the girls were never accused of crimes, only administrative immigration violations.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/05/12/1035827-ap.html
This Imam has some real credibility issues. He does, however, sound like an ideal candidate for ACLU and CAIR membership.