No explanation for Al-Qudhai’een’s detention has been forthcoming. The results of his appearance before a federal court on June 25 and 27 have not been made public. The little information that is available suggests that in the eyes of the government he suffers from guilt by association.

Al-Qudhai’een, a linguistics student at the University of Arizona, was an acquaintance of Zakaria Soubra, a former aviation student in Prescott, Arizona. An FBI agent in Arizona had raised suspicions about Soubra in a memo prior to September 11. Following the attacks, Soubra was called to testify before the Virginia jury. In spite of the fact that he never faced criminal charges, the authorities used their wide powers under the immigration laws to deport him to his native Lebanon in May.

Al-Qudhai’een also brought himself to the attention of the “justice” system when he and fellow student Hamdan Al-Shalawi filed a racial profiling suit against America West in 1999. The two men had been handcuffed and removed from a plane after a flight attendant said that Al-Qudhai’een had touched the cockpit door—an accusation that he denied. A federal judge dismissed the suit in June of this year.The government has used the material-witness provision in holding dozens of people in post-9/11 sweeps, many of whom have never been summoned before a grand jury. Conferring this status on an individual allows prosecutors to hold him or her indefinitely if a judge agrees that there is a risk of flight. Members of the Islamic Center of Tucson have protested Al-Qudhai’een’s jailing. “He is in FBI custody and for what?” said Omar Shahin. “They do not tell us anything. His wife knows nothing. We came to this country for independence and freedom and it has been destroyed.”  
 
 
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