1 Man Still Locked Up From 9/11 Sweeps

This undated photo, provided by the U.S. Marshals service, shows Ali Partovi, the last of about 1200 Arab and Muslim men swept up in the U.S. in the two months following the 9-11 terror attacks and the last still being held, according to the Department of Homeland Security. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service) (AP)

"Those 1,200 were taken in on pseudo-immigration charges," said Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch. "It really is a black mark on the U.S. and it undermines our intelligence gathering because it creates distrust between law enforcement officials and communities where those officials should be building rapport and trust."

"People lost years of their lives and families were ripped apart in the frenzy of fear," said Kerri Sherlock, director of policy and planning at the Rights Working Group, an advocacy organization in Washington D.C. "Do we really want to be a country that locks people up without guaranteeing their basic constitutional rights?"

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In June 2003, the Justice Department's inspector general, an in-house auditor, found widespread abuses in the way immigration laws were used to hold people suspected of terrorism in the months following 9/11. The inspector general made 21 recommendations aimed at protecting individuals' civil rights. Twenty of those recommendations have been adopted.

The last recommendation calls for the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to formalize policies, responsibilities, and procedures for managing a national emergency that involves alien detainees. After the inspector general's report, the Justice and Homeland Security departments agreed with the recommendation and began negotiating over language. Officials at both departments say those negotiations are still going on.

"The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice continue to work toward the development of formal joint policies and approaches for the handling of such national security cases during periods of national impact," said Homeland Security Department spokesman Dean Boyd.

However, Boyd stressed that guidelines were set up in 2004 to make sure detainees' rights are being protected on a case-by-case basis.

"We learned from the past," he said. "We evaluate each situation to make sure it's being handled fairly."

Tim Lynch, a lawyer with the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, said guidelines are not enough.

"I don't think the guidelines will mean very much in an emergency if they don't have the binding force of law," he said. "We shouldn't be surprised if those guidelines aren't followed if there's another massive attack."

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When the AP wrote Ali Partovi to ask for an interview, he called collect from the Florence Correctional Center, a privately run detention center in Arizona where he is held. Adamantly, he said he did not want to be interviewed and that he wanted to remain private, even though he said understood his case files, including litigation he files himself, are part of the public record.

He later reportedly told a public affairs officer at the facility that he is too busy for an interview _ perhaps preparing his many legal appeals.

In his lawsuits _ there have been seven so far _ Partovi claims he is a victim of civil rights abuses and demands between $5 million and $10 million in restitution. The most recent was filed in July.

The staff at the jail where he was first held "poured hot coffee on my body, they also poured cold ice water on my body," he wrote in one, claiming that staffers also cuffed his hands and feet, which caused "my ankle and lower extremities to swell abnormally."

"It is my firm belief that I am constantly subjected to physical abuse (because) of my ethnicity, I am Iranian of Persian birth," he wrote in another, filed this summer. In that lawsuit he claimed that immigration officers forced him to kneel while handcuffed, and then kicked and punched his stomach and kidneys.

"As you can imagine, this is very, very painful when you are cuffed from behind," he wrote.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney said that office was aware of the lawsuits but could not comment on them. A detention center spokesman said he was not aware of any lawsuits and could not respond.

Partovi doesn't have a lawyer, and he told the AP he doesn't want one, choosing instead to represent himself, gleaning expertise from the prison library.

He did have a lawyer once, when he was arrested in Guam in the weeks after Sept. 11, trying to enter the U.S. on a flight out of Japan using a fraudulent Italian passport.

"Mr. Partovi came into Guam International Airport using a false passport. He explained about having been married to a Japanese woman and the arrangement wasn't working out. He applied for political asylum, and I believe the federal government thought he might be a terror suspect," said Curtis Charles Van de Veld, who was hired by the federal government to represent him.

Partovi was sentenced to 175 days in custody, which he had already served by the time he pleaded guilty in 2002. Then he was turned over from U.S. Marshals Service custody to the Department of Homeland Security; sometime after that he was transferred from Guam to Arizona.

Until the AP contacted him, Van de Veld didn't realize his former client was still in custody.

"I'm surprised he hasn't contacted me," he said.