Detained Iraqis Deny That They Are Spies

Two Iraqi refugees jailed in Lancaster denied in interviews Saturday that they are spies for Saddam Hussein, the man they said they helped the U.S. government try to overthrow.

They are among 25 jailed Iraqis who say the U.S. government lured them to this country with the promise of asylum after they assisted in a failed bid to oust Hussein last summer. Instead, they are being detained at three Southern California jails and face deportation as suspected spies or terrorists.

Eight men, all educated professionals who say they aided the Central Intelligence Agency in the secret operation, have been held at the mothballed Mira Loma County Jail in Lancaster since late March. Their wives and children recently were granted political asylum.

In interviews with two of the detainees at Mira Loma--physicians Ali Yasim Mohammed Karim and Adil Hadi Awadh--and with relatives in the San Fernando Valley, all denied posing any security threat to the United States.

“My husband is not a threat to America,” said the wife of detained journalist Hashim Qadir Hawlery, who is among the eight being held in Mira Loma.

“He has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein,” Shukria Khoshnaw said from her home in Glendale. “When America needed us, my husband risked his life and he worked against Saddam. Now, he is being accused as Saddam’s spy. I don’t understand it.”

Karim and Awadh denied that any of their group were Iraqi spies. They said they were among 6,500 refugees airlifted out of Iraq in three waves last fall, and that U.S. officials promised them refuge before they boarded U.S. military planes for Guam.

It was only after they landed on U.S. soil that the refugees learned there might be any question about receiving asylum, said attorney Niels W. Frenzen of the Public Counsel Law Center, which represents seven of the Southern California detainees.

Justice Department and Clinton administration officials declined Saturday to say what evidence the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service have against the Iraqis. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, reached in her office, declined comment.

Justice Department spokeswoman Carole Florman said the INS had “reasonable grounds” to suspect that 13 of the 25 Iraqis being held were “potential national security risks.”

Exactly what constitutes a threat to U.S. national security is broadly defined and open to interpretation, but it includes such concerns as allegiance to a hostile foreign power or suspicion of espionage, Florman said.

“There was at least sufficient grounds to determine that these people could represent this kind of a threat,” Florman said.

“Some of them we brought here because they were found to be disruptive in the [refugee] camp,” Florman said without elaboration.

The men being held at Mira Loma include a defector from the Iraqi military and a physician who treated CIA agents and acted as their interpreter, as well as engineers, the journalist and a commercial pilot. They are scheduled to appear in U.S. Immigration Court in San Pedro on May 21, Frenzen said.

In addition to Karim, Awadh and Hawlery, court records identified the five other men at Mira Loma as Mohammed Jwer Al-Ammary, Ali Jahjoh Saleh, Mohammed Jose Qaisar, Mohammed Jassin Tuma and Safadim Abdulhassan Al-Batat.

A woman who is being held at the INS detention center in San Pedro was identified as Mehdia Jasim Alzubydy. Sixteen other refugees are at the Lerdo INS detention center near Bakersfield. Their cases are pending before immigration officials in San Francisco.

All belonged to or were affiliated with the CIA-backed resistance groups the Iraqi National Accord and the Iraqi National Congress, and fled Iraq with their families after Hussein’s military forces and secret police invaded their towns in the northern U.S.-protected no-fly zone.

The CIA’s $100-million covert operation collapsed in disaster Aug. 31, according to Frenzen and court records.

Since coming to the United States, Frenzen said, the detainees have been unable to defend themselves against what they say are false allegations because government officials assert that the information, apparently gleaned from fellow detainees by the FBI, is classified.

“It’s Kafkaesque,” the lawyer said. He has accused the federal government in court documents of misconduct and violating the refugees’ rights to due process.

During an interview Saturday at Mira Loma, Karim said he saw the U.S.-sponsored evacuation as an opportunity to escape the oppression of the Hussein government and begin a new life of freedom in America. So far, the 35-year-old physician who assisted the CIA-backed opposition since 1994, has known only incarceration.

Karim and Adwah, a 30-year-old doctor who defected from the Iraqi army in 1996 to join the opposition, said they and the others being held at Mira Loma were all high-ranking members of their opposition groups, which may have prompted some of the false allegations by their fellow refugees.

Special correspondent Radha Krishnan Thampi contributed to this story.