[Vision2020] Federal Judge allows ex-UI Football Player to Sue U.S.

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (September 20, 2006) Spokesman Review -

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Federal judge allows ex-UI football player to sue U.S. 
Associated Press 
September 20, 2006

BOISE - A federal judge has said a lawsuit brought by a former University of
Idaho football player against U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the
Department of Homeland Security and others can move forward.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge made the ruling in a written order Monday.

Abdullah al-Kidd, who played for the Vandals under the name Lavoni Kidd,
contends that in 2003 the government wrongfully arrested him as a material
witness in its unsuccessful computer terrorism case against a fellow
student, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen.

A jury acquitted Al-Hussayen of using his computer skills to foster
terrorism and of three immigration violations in an eight-week federal
trial. It deadlocked on eight other immigration charges, and Al-Hussayen -
who was only months from finishing his doctoral study at the UI - was
eventually deported to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Kidd was never called to testify in the case. But three weeks after
Al-Hussayen was arrested, al-Kidd was arrested at Dulles International
Airport in Washington, D.C., as a material witness in the Al-Hussayen case.
Al-Kidd had planned to board a flight to Saudi Arabia to begin studying
Islam on a four-year scholarship.

Al-Kidd spent two weeks in jail before he was granted a detention hearing in
Idaho, at which the judge agreed to release him into the custody of his
wife. But al-Kidd was prohibited from traveling anywhere but in Idaho,
Washington, Nevada and California, and his public defenders said the
restrictions and the detention not only cost al-Kidd his scholarship in
Saudi Arabia but employment opportunities as well.

Al-Kidd sued, alleging that he was falsely imprisoned, and that the
government was guilty of abuse of process. He contended that the arrest
warrant was invalid because in order to get the arrest warrant, the FBI gave
wrong information about al-Kidd to a U.S. magistrate.

Specifically, the FBI allegedly told the judge that al-Kidd had only a
one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia, when he had purchased a round-trip ticket.
The FBI also allegedly failed to tell the judge that al-Kidd had a wife and
children in the U.S., that he was a U.S. citizen, that he had talked with
the FBI several times before his arrest and the FBI had never told al-Kidd
that he should not travel abroad.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Vandalville, Idaho

Came a tribe from the north brave and bold . . .

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