June 26, 2003|By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's inspector general said yesterday that his office is investigating allegations of abuse by federal prison guards in Brooklyn, N.Y., against illegal immigrants detained after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the head of the federal prison system vigorously defended his agency's handling of the inmates.
Briefing lawmakers on a highly critical report delivered by his office this month on the treatment of the detainees, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said investigators had "serious concerns" about a pattern of verbal and physical abuse faced by 84 illegal immigrants at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Investigators found that some guards slammed inmates against walls, dragged them by their arms, stepped on the chains between their ankle cuffs, and made slurs and threats such as "you will feel pain" and "you're going to die here," Fine told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Although Justice Department officials have declined to bring criminal charges against any of the corrections officers, Fine said that his office was conducting an internal administrative review of certain officers, who he said numbered fewer than 10, and that he may recommend disciplinary action.
"We're looking at all options, wherever that leads us," Fine told a reporter. He added, however, that his office has not found any evidence that physical or verbal abuse was condoned by higher officials.
Harley G. Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, testified at the same hearing and suggested that any instances of abuse - if they occurred - were isolated.
He said the bureau's highly restrictive conditions, in which some detainees were held alone for 23 hours a day, were justified because the inmates were suspected of having ties to terrorists and had to be considered capable of violence.
But Lappin said the agency does "not tolerate any type of abuse of inmates." He said that "if these allegations of misconduct are substantiated, I want to emphasize that the bureau will take appropriate and decisive action."
The reports of abuse in the Brooklyn facility drew condemnations from Republicans and Democrats.
"Neither the fact that the department was operating under unprecedented trying conditions nor the fact that the 9/11 detainees were in our country illegally justifies entirely the way in which some of the detainees were treated," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
It was a rare issue of agreement at a hearing marked by sharp partisan differences over whether federal authorities went too far after Sept. 11 in detaining illegal immigrants.
Fine's report found "significant problems" in the way federal officials detained and treated 762 people who were picked up on immigration violation in the weeks and months after the attacks. Although very few detainees turned out to have ties to terrorism, investigators said the FBI made little effort to distinguish legitimate suspects from those picked up by chance. Many inmates were left to languish in unduly harsh conditions for months, with some denied access to lawyers and family members, Fine said.
On Tuesday, officials from the FBI and the Justice Department defended their handling of the illegal immigrants, saying the extraordinary circumstances after the attacks demanded that they err on the side of caution in dealing with possible suspects.
