Justice, Not Body Counts

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Justice, Not Body Counts
by James Hall

January 23, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall Those in favor of swift and sure justice for America's terrorists should make themselves aware of the case of the young Egyptian Abdullah Hegazy. On September 11, he was staying in a hotel across from the World Trade Center. That in itself wasn't enough to raise suspicion, but then a hotel security guard came forward to say he found a radio transceiver in Hegazy's room safe, one attuned to the frequency that airliners use.

Suspicions then arose: could Hegazy have been placed there by Al Qaeda to call the airliners into the World Trade Center? In December, he was taken into custody by the FBI. He denied any knowledge of the radio, and claimed to be a student studying for a master's degree. But when pressured by FBI investigators, who threatened to report him to Egyptian authorities and have his family investigated by them, he cracked and admitted owning the radio. He was then charged with lying to investigators and seemed headed to a sensational trial as the man who directed the terror attack on the World Trade Center.

But after a month's incarceration, the radio's real owner, an American pilot, came to claim it. It turns out that Abdullah Hegazy was a student after all, placed in the hotel by his school while it searched for more permanent accommodations for him. The zealous security guard made a mistake--the radio had been in a room a floor below Hegazy's room. After thirty days of incarceration and interrogation, Hegazy was guilty only of being the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Abdullah Hegazy's story should be a cautionary tale for all advocates of zealous counterterrorism. A lot of situations that appear to be terrorism won't pan out. Though Hegazy fit the profile of a terrorist -- right age, right sex, one of the right nationalities in a place where a terror attack took place -- he was a legitimate foreign student simply pursuing his business. There will almost certainly be others like him.

Interrogating potential suspects is a reasonable activity, and one the FBI is ought to do. But it should also know the difference between gathering facts and manufacturing them. What's most troubling about this situation is the forced confession the FBI got from Hegazy. They got it by threatening to report his family to a repressive Egyptian regime that was likely to imprison or even execute them without evidence. Abdullah Hegazy, like many Arabs, is a young man devoted to his family and willing to be incarcerated rather than expose them to far worse treatment by the Egyptians. Pushing that button led to a confession -- regardless of the real truth -- and will likely do so in the future.

Though Abdullah Hegazy's incarceration might have made us feel more secure, it wouldn't have made us more secure. And the situation could have been worse had there been an actual crime committed by an actual terrorist -- in that case we might well have incarcerated the wrong man and let the terrorist remain free to commit more acts of terrorism. Putting random innocent Arabs behind bars isn't the solution to our problem, and forcing false confessions doesn't help when the real terrorists remain at large.

If we're looking to catch the real terrorists, we should eschew threatening the families of suspects with harm from repressive national regimes like the Egyptians and Saudis, our "allies" in the War on Terrorism. We should instead focus on the quality of the evidence gathereed, and treat terrorist suspects as we treat other criminal suspects. Otherwise our war may start to resemble the Vietnam war -- a time of high body counts, but few real victories. ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files