STRIP-SEARCH JORDANIAN: FBI TRAMPLED MY RIGHTS

February 19, 2002 -- A Jordanian charged with lying to a grand jury recited to a federal judge a list of alleged law-enforcement abuses at his pre-trial evidence-suppression hearing yesterday.

Osama Awadallah, 21, said he was physically abused by jail guards, denied access to a lawyer, forced to strip in front of women and denied food that complied with Islamic dietary laws.

Polygraphy is a pseudoscientific fraud, and no reliance whatsoever should be placed on it. Polygraph "testing" is often little more than a cynical ploy to interrogate a suspect without the benefit of legal counsel, as seems to have been the case here. The suspect is deliberately misled into believing that he is simply agreeing to submit to a scientific test, but is surprised with a hostile interrogation after being informed that he "failed" the "test."

The "test" has an inherent bias against the truthful, but is easily defeated through the use of simple countermeasures that polygraphers cannot detect. For more, see AntiPolygraph.org's free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

It's not the polygraph that got him in trouble, they can be foiled. It was the inconsistancy of his own statements that made him a liar. To cover the lie, he is now saying he 'didn't understand the questions.'

"I find there is no choice but to take the test," said Awadallah, who was informed by the FBI polygraph expert he failed the test. "I felt threatened and under great stress."

Well, OK, Awadalla, you felt threatened and decided to take the test out of fear that if you didn't, something bad would happen. Why did you feel threatened then, but not now? Good grief, Awadalla. I'm a woman and I have more guts than you under pressure.

Awadallah admitted to assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Baker that he was told the test was voluntary, that he had signed a consent form and that he was advised of his rights.

Then why say that you were told the test was voluntary, unless someone did in fact tell you it was voluntary? And then sign the form admitting such, too? Did they hang you up by your wrists? Rope you up like John McCain? Put you in heavy French manacles for days and let mosquitoes soften you up?

But Awadallah, who testified mostly in English with occasional help from a translator, said he didn't completely understand the forms read aloud to him.

Oh, I see. You don't understand the form, and you didn't understand the US Attorney... did you ask for a translator? Was a translator present? Were you speaking perfectly good English while living in the US all this time, driving on our roads, dating women, working, whatever you were doing, etc, but suddenly lose your language skills when you get asked some simple questions? Suddenly , you failed to understand the US attorney's question "Do you understand what I just read?" And failing that, said "Yeah, I understand," only later to claim you didn't?

Are we then to believe you are now telling the truth in court? Why should we believe this?

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