"Saddam Hussein has had more due process than Cyrus Kar," said Mark Rosenbaum, the lead lawyer in the case. "This is a detention policy that was drafted by Kafka."
Ironically, Kar supported the president's decision to "export democracy" to Iraq. As TChris said at the time, "Perhaps he misunderstood the nature of Bush democracy: the kind that reserves autocratic powers to the administration and its military."
Kar was released in July, 2005, after being detained in an Iraqi prison for 7 weeks without charges
TChris explains:
Justifying the detention, military officials claim that Kar represented "an imperative security threat to Iraq" which had been resolved "appropriately." In other words, there was no evidence that Kar was a threat at all, and unfavorable publicity forced the military to release him.
While the military claims that Kar was given a meaningful hearing, and that his release shows how well detention review panels work, Kar's lawyers cut through the spin:
"He was never told what if any charges were being made against him," said one of the lawyers, Mark D. Rosenbaum. "He never had access to a lawyer. He was never told that he passed a lie-detector test. He was virtually incommunicado. That's not a model detention policy. And that was for 50 days - for a guy who got into the wrong cab."
Kar's ordeal was not quite over. In addition to messing with his passport, Kar's military captors were not good custodians of his other property.
Mr. Kar's camera and laptop computer were also missing or stolen, the lawyers said. The school ring he got with his master's degree from Pepperdine University was gone, his relatives said, and even most of his clothes had been lost.
Fortunately, Kar recovered the film he shot for his documentary.
Justifying the detention, military officials claim that Kar represented "an imperative security threat to Iraq" which had been resolved "appropriately." In other words, there was no evidence that Kar was a threat at all, and unfavorable publicity forced the military to release him.
Now, Kar has sued Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr Kar is described as a patriotic American who believed in spreading democracy around the world. A former Navy Seal raised in the western US, he had gone to Iraq to film part of a documentary about an enlightened ancient Persian king. Mr Kar's relatives say they have been able to talk to him by phone several times, and that he has been becoming ncreasingly angry.
Weeks ago, his family said an FBI agent told them he had passed a polygraph test and was cleared of any charges. "Mr Kar is now imprisoned by the United States military in Iraq without the slightest hint of legal authority," said Mark Rosenbaum, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is filing the lawsuit on his behalf.
Kar believes the treatment by the military is a contributing factor to the anger against the U.S that released detainees develop.
"There's a reckless arrest policy," he says, "There's a tremendous amount of humiliation that follows that arrest policy, and I strongly believe that one of the major reasons that the insurgency is growing is because when detainees are released, they come out, and they're looking for retribution. ...They're angry."
Mr. Kar recounts his treatment in Iraq:
While in confinement, the suit states, Kar was hooded, restrained "in painful flexi-cuffs," and "repeatedly threatened, taunted and insulted" by U.S. soldiers. At one point, according to the suit, a soldier at Abu Ghraib slammed Kar's head into a concrete wall.
"Mr. Kar was and remains traumatized by his indefinite and virtually incommunicado detention, in solitary confinement, by the U.S. military without charge," the suit states.
Mr. Kar is seeking more than damages.
The suit -- filed by Rosenbaum and Ranjana Natarajan of the ACLU and volunteer attorney Dan Marmalefsky of the Morrison & Foerster law firm -- has a broader agenda than winning a damages award for Kar. "This action is brought to end the policies and practices of the United States government toward detainees in Iraq to which Cyrus Kar, a United States citizen and Navy veteran, was subjected ... in clear violation" of fundamental principles of due process of law.
The suit asserts that the U.S. military and other government agencies have a policy, pattern and practice of: deliberately failing to provide attorneys to detainees in Iraq; subjecting these persons to lengthy and indefinite detention without bringing charges; deliberately failing to provide detainees access to a court and to their family members; and holding hearings for the detainees that do not conform to the requirements of the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Convention provisions governing the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians. In addition to Rumsfeld, the defendants includes Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the commanding general.
I hope Mr. Kar gets a big paycheck from the Government when this is over.
