WASHINGTON (AFP) – A sharply divided US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the FBI director and Bush-era officials cannot be sued over the alleged abuse of terror suspects in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In a five-to-four ruling, the justices threw out a New York federal appeals court decision that stated FBI chief Robert Mueller, former attorney general John Ashcroft and other officials under then-president George W. Bush could be found liable for alleged mistreatment of terror suspects.
The complaint, brought by Pakistani detainee Javaid Iqbal, “fails to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for purposeful and unlawful discrimination against petitioners,” the court ruled.
Iqbal, a Pakistani Muslim, was arrested in November 2001 on an immigration violation shortly after the attacks and jailed for five months in 2002 in a maximum-security prison in New York.
Iqbal claims, that like hundreds of other Arab Muslims, he was held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for several months with the… >>>
