Free Republic

<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p>

The government’s jailing of terrorism witnesses for a grand jury probe of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is unconstitutional, a federal judge concluded Tuesday in dismissing a perjury case against a Jordanian college student. In a ruling that, if upheld, would have far reaching implications on the government’s approach to investigating terrorism, Judge Shira Scheindlin attacked the reasoning of Attorney General John Ashcroft. She criticized Ashcroft’s reported statement that “aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses is vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks.” Scheindlin wrote that “Relying on the material witness statute to detain people who are presumed...

No Case Vs. Man Who Knew Hijackers Tue Apr 30,12:29 PM ET By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge threw out a perjury indictment Tuesday against a Jordanian college student who knew two alleged Sept. 11 hijackers, citing errors made when investigators applied for an arrest warrant. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin dismissed the indictment after concluding that Osama Awadallah, 21, was unlawfully arrested after he was taken from his San Diego home several days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Awadallah was effectively seized," she wrote. Scheindlin said that federal statute does not...

Radio host Curtis Sliwa thinks it's time for a federal judge to fold her cards. The Guardian Angels founder told the Daily News he saw Manhattan Federal Court Judge Shira Scheindlin playing a computer card game while he testified at the trial of John A. (Junior) Gotti. Sliwa said Scheindlin should recuse herself from the case, in which the 42-year-old mob scion is accused of orchestrating the 1992 shooting that nearly killed Sliwa. He drew a parallel to Mayor Bloomberg's firing of a city worker caught playing computer solitaire at his desk. "Should a federal judge be playing video solitaire...