ADC Action Alert:
Contact Attorney General Janet Reno to Release Nasser Ahemd
After being held for over three years in solitary confinement on the basis of secret evidence, Nasser Ahmed‘s release has been yet again ordered, this time by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) asked Attorney General Janet Reno to overrule this decision.
On July 30, following 3 days of hearings on the “secret” evidence that was long-withheld from Ahmed and his attorneys, immigration judge Don Livingston, in a strongly worded opinion, ruled that Ahmed should not be deported and ordered his release. Since Ahmed was first arrested in 1996, the government has never charged him with any crime. It sought his deportation based on his alleged “association with a known terrorist organization.” The evidence supporting this allegation was withheld from Ahmed and his attorneys, and for years he languished in solitary confinement without charge and without the opportunity to examine and challenge the evidence against him.
Ahmed‘s case once again demonstrates that secret evidence is generally synonymous with weak evidence. On Oct. 20, U.S. District Court Judge William Walls ruled in a similar case that a detainee‘s rights to due process were denied by his incarceration on secret evidence. The practice is clearly unconstitutional.
Please contact the Attorney General and urge her to uphold the court orders and release Nasser Ahmed, an innocent man who has been in jail without charge and on the basis of trumped-up secret evidence that has been reviewed and rejected by the courts.
Please write today as the Attorney General Janet Reno will be making her decision by tomorrow. call her office at 202-514-2001 Or Fax to 202-514-4371 Or email to