U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane of the Middle District of Pennsylvania had ordered the hearing in response to Abdel-Muhti’s habeas corpus petition, first filed in New Jersey 16 months ago. Stating that it is holding Abdel-Muhti under a 1995 deportation order, the government has refused to release him in spite of the fact that they have nowhere to deport him, given that he was born as a citizen of Palestine before the founding of Israel.

Abdel-Muhti, 57, was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs, escorted by two plainclothes cops. At the beginning and end of the two-hour hearing he exchanged words and victory signs with his supporters.

Born in 1947 in the West Bank when it was still under British control, he left Palestine in the 1960s, living at various times in the United States and several countries in Latin America. He has lived here since the 1970s.

“The government has failed to specify what they want Mr. Abdel-Muhti to do to clarify his situation. They have failed to tell him what to do to get out of his detention,” said his attorney, Shayana Kadidal, of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. Kadidal pointed out that because the Palestinian is effectively stateless, he “cannot be deported and therefore he must be released.”

Abdel-Muhti was arrested in New York on April 26, 2002 by immigration agents and cops who claimed they wanted to question him about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The cops said they believed there were weapons and explosives inside and threatened to break down the apartment door, in spite of the fact that they had no warrant.

After six months Abdel-Muhti filed a habeas corpus petition from his New Jersey prison cell. His petition cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a similar appeal by Kestutis Zadvydas. Writing in June 2001, the judges said that a deportation order “does not permit indefinite detention.” Kadidal noted that the court had set a six-month limit on the time that most such prisoners could be held.

The authorities insist that they will eventually be able to deport Abdel-Muhti to his birthplace on the West Bank. At the same time, they say they will hold him indefinitely on the grounds that he has allegedly not cooperated with them in turning up documents to prove that he is Palestinian.

The immigration police have also sought, with no more success, to deport Abdel-Muhti to Honduras. They say that he had Honduran documents when he first entered the United States as a minor in the 1960s. Abdel-Muhti’s statement that the Honduran papers were not his has been confirmed by Honduran authorities.

Kadidah answered the government’s charges that Abdel-Muhti has misrepresented his identity. The Palestinian’s personal information filed with the INS has been consistent since he was detained in 1975, he said. Abdel-Muhti provided a birth certificate issued in 1960 by Jordan, which held the West Bank from the end of the British mandate until the area’s occupation by Israeli troops in 1967.

Continuing to accuse Abdel-Muhti of misrepresentation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daryl Bloom gave a list of names and birth dates that Abdel-Muhti has supposedly used in the past “to evade” the law.

Kadidal said that misspellings, the chauvinist practice of anglicizing names, and typographical errors are endemic within the immigration bureaucracy, and can explain the discrepancies. He pointed to misspellings of Abdel-Muhti’s name in custody over the last two years.

“The argument made by the government about the alleged name changes is one that can be made for any immigrant living here for more than 40 years,” Kadidal told reporters after the hearing.  
 
Claims of agreement with Tel Aviv
Less than an hour before the hearing, Bloom handed the judge a declaration by immigration officials claiming that a new agreement had been reached with the Israeli government that would allow Washington to deport Palestinians to the occupied territories through Israel. According to Bloom the new agreement would allow for the removal of Palestinians like Abdel-Muhti who do not have original Israeli or Palestinian travel documents.

Last year the immigration cops cited similar agreements with the governments of Egypt and Jordan in deporting Palestinian nationals to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The new agreement did not apply to Abdel-Muhti any more than its predecessors did, said Kadidal, because the declaration applies only to Palestinians listed on Israel’s population registry. Abdel-Muhti’s departure from the West Bank came before Israel’s occupation of the area.

Judge Kane asked Bloom how long it would take for the government to secure Abdel-Muhti’s deportation under the alleged new agreement. Pleading that the U.S. government is held at “the whim” of the Israeli regime, Bloom said that it could take years.

“One year ago the claim of deportation in the reasonably foreseeable future might have been acceptable to this court,” said Judge Kane to the government lawyer. She asked him if he agreed that 23 months is a long time to hold somebody without charges.

The judge noted that in her reading of the Supreme Court’s Zadvydas ruling, the longer the period of detention, the greater the obligation of the government to show that deportation is imminent. “The government has to present how many days, how many months,” said Kane, who has not yet issued a ruling in the case.

The Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti is organizing an action April 26 to mark the second anniversary of his arrest. “Hopefully it will be a celebration and not another protest,” said David Wilson, a leader of the committee.

For more information about how you can support the fight for Abdel-Muhti’s release and against the deportation threat, call 212-674-9499 or visit www.freefarouk.org.  
 
 
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