Federal court blocks deportation
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PHILADELPHIA -- A federal judge has ordered a halt to the deportation of an Egyptian who says he fears he will be tortured if returned to his homeland, and has ordered him released from prison.
U.S. District Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie said Thursday that Sameh Khouzam made "a credible showing" that he had been tortured in Egypt, and the U.S. government could not deport him on the basis of diplomatic assurances without court review.
"In light of the government's refusal to expose the Egyptian diplomatic assurance to any sort of impartial review, the government may not proceed with the removal of Khouzam," wrote Judge Vanaskie, of the court's Middle District of Pennsylvania in Scranton.
The judge also ordered the release of Mr. Khouzam under "reasonable conditions of supervision."
The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the decision, calling it the first of its kind.
"This is a significant victory for due process and the rights of all people -- citizens or not -- to be free of torture," ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said in a statement.
Justice Department officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Egyptian officials say Mr. Khouzam is a convicted murderer who should be returned to face justice. U.S. officials earlier this year agreed to hand him over, saying they had been assured that he would be treated humanely.
Mr. Khouzam's lawyers told Judge Vanaskie in August that such assurances were meaningless and that the Coptic Christian would almost certainly be tortured if sent back to the overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
Government attorneys said the court must defer to the executive branch's determination that Egypt's assurances are sufficient. They also said the case must be put in the broader context of relations between the United States and Egypt.
"Not even the president of the United States has the authority to sacrifice ... the right to be free from torture" on the altar of foreign relations, Judge Vanaskie wrote in a footnote in his 53-page ruling.
Mr. Khouzam was convicted in absentia of killing a woman, but Vanaskie said in ordering his release, said that such a conviction did not establish a threat to the community. He cited an affidavit saying such convictions are routinely made after review of a file and are often overturned in a new trial.
Attorneys for Mr. Khouzam, who is being held in York County Prison, deny that he killed anybody, saying Egypt has never produced a body or an autopsy report.
Mr. Khouzam was arrested when his plane landed in New York in February 1998 and he spent the next eight years in American prisons. Another federal judge granted him a "deferral of removal" in 2000 under an international treaty that bans deportation to a country where torture is likely.
Mr. Khouzam, 38, won a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 2004 and was released last year. Federal immigration officials took him into custody again in May.
Mr. Khouzam's lawyers say he was detained and beaten by Egyptian authorities after he refused to convert to Islam. They say he escaped from a hospital, went straight to the airport and got on a plane to the United States. While he was in the air, Egyptian officials called U.S. officials and said Mr. Khouzam was wanted for killing a woman, and the U.S. canceled his visa.
"The issue in this case does not concern any right of Khouzam to remain in the United States," Judge Vanaskie wrote. "The right at stake here is to be free from torture."
First Published January 12, 2008 12:00 am
