LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A U.S. citizen tortured and imprisoned for more than a year in the United Arab Emirates at the apparent behest of the United States government has been released and deported to Lebanon, where he will be reunited with his family.

Naji Hamdan’s release came after a more than 13-month-long campaign by the ACLU/SC and his family to have him freed. During that time, he was arrested, blindfolded, held in a secret prison for months and ultimately charged on evidence obtained under torture.

“Mr. Hamdan’s harrowing ordeal is a troubling example of what can and is likely to continue to occur unless the Obama administration renounces Bush-era policies of proxy detention,” said Ahilan Arulanantham director of immigrant rights and national security at the ACLU/SC. “Turning over suspects to foreign governments with grim human-rights records and little transparency will not make Americans safer. It certainly did not in the case of Mr. Hamdan. Instead, proxy detention undermines the American system of due process and rips apart the lives of innocent people.”

After a trial riddled with problems -- including closed door-hearings, a “confession” obtained under torture, and charges that dealt with events that occurred outside the U.A.E. -- a U.A.E. judge earlier this month found Hamdan guilty of terrorism-related charges and sentenced him to 18 months’ time served.

“I am grateful to everyone that has stood by my side during this difficult time. I can’t tell you how horrific the conditions were and the immense personal and physical toll I have suffered,” Hamdan said from his home in Lebanon. “But just because I am safe now does not mean that others are. My story is destined to repeat itself if the Obama administration does not put an end to this practice.”

Hamdan, who raised his family in Southern California before moving to the U.A.E., was arrested in that country last year by state security forces in a move that appears to have been orchestrated by the former administration of President George W. Bush. For three months, Hamdan was held in a secret U.A.E. prison where security forces interrogated and tortured him until he confessed to whatever the officials wanted. Hamdan believes that at least one American official was present during one of those torture sessions, when the interrogator spoke to him in American English while he himself remained blindfolded.

Shortly after he was imprisoned, the ACLU/SC filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, alleging its involvement. It was only then that Hamdan was transferred from a secret location to criminal custody where he was able to contact his family. Our lawsuit stated that because the U.S. government did not have enough evidence to arrest Hamdan under U.S. laws, it asked the U.A.E. to detain him instead, a practice known as “proxy detention.” We subsequently delivered a petition with hundreds of signatures to incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to look into Hamdan’s case, and lobbied other U.S. government officials. In addition, the ACLU/SC closely monitored Hamdan’s trial, corresponding with him and at times attending court hearings in the U.A.E.

Hamdan lived for two decades in the Los Angeles area, where he ran an auto-parts business and helped manage the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, a mosque and community center. His nightmare began in 2006 when he relocated his family and business to the U.A.E. As the Hamdans tried to board a flight at Los Angeles International Airport, FBI agents separated him from his wife and children, detained him and questioned him for hours. He was eventually released and allowed to travel, but when he returned to Los Angeles in early 2007 to check on his business, he was subjected to further intensive FBI surveillance.

In the summer of 2008, FBI agents traveled from Los Angeles to the U.A.E. to question Hamdan further. Shortly thereafter he was detained incommunicado by U.A.E. state security agents. Since Hamdan’s arrest, both U.S. and U.A.E. officials have refused to deny that the United States was responsible for his detention.

The following statement is from Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California:

The Pasadena Police Department today released the report of the Los Angeles Office of Independent Review examining the shooting of Leroy Barnes by two officers of the Pasadena Police Department on February 19, 2009.

The ACLU of Southern California and its Pasadena/Foothills Chapter had called for an independent review of the PPD’s own investigation of the Barnes shooting, and we believe the OIR’s final report proves the value of this additional inquiry. We applaud PPD Chief Bernard Melekian for his recognition of the importance of this review in providing both policy recommendations to the department and reassurance to the community of an outside review, and we urge Pasadena City Council to adopt it.

The report by the OIR gives the PPD positive marks in many aspects of its handling of the investigation, including, importantly, the overall effort to provide transparency to the community about the shooting and subsequent investigation. However, the OIR also identifies serious concerns about some aspects of the PPD’s conduct, including the tactics used by officers in approaching the car that Barnes was in; the use of leading questions by investigators questioning the officers involved; and the lack of attention by the department’s investigators to prior shooting incidents involving the same officers. Addressing these and other concerns raised in the OIR’s report will improve PPD tactics and also the safety of officers, suspects and members of the community.

We are gratified that Chief Melekian has said that his department accepts these recommendations, and that he will provide the City Council’s public safety committee with specific steps that the department will undertake to address them. Chief Melekian has also indicated that the department and the Pasadena city manager will recommend to the council that an analysis be conducted by the Office of Independent Review in all future officer-involved shootings resulting in injury or death. The ACLU/SC continues to likewise recommend such a policy.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A judge in the United Arab Emirates sentenced U.S. citizen Naji Hamdan to 18 months after finding him guilty of unspecified terrorism-related charges that stem from an apparent U.S.- orchestrated arrest and a coerced confession obtained under torture.

Hamdan, who has been imprisoned in the U.A.E. for more than a year, will be released shortly based on time already served. In handing down the sentence Monday, the U.A.E. judge never specified the charges on which Hamdan was convicted.

“If the government of the U.A.E. thought that Mr. Hamdan was a threat to anyone’s security, he would not have been ordered released on time served,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrant rights and national security at ACLU/SC.

Hamdan has become an unfortunate example of the Obama administration’s willingness to continue the Bush-era practice of using foreign governments -- often those with abysmal human rights records -- to detain and interrogate suspects based on little if any evidence while subverting the U.S. judicial process.

Last year U.A.E. state security forces, at the apparent behest of the U.S. government, detained Hamdan in a secret prison for three months, during which time officials interrogated and tortured him until he agreed to confess to whatever the officials wanted. Hamdan believes that at least one American official was present during a torture session, when the interrogator spoke to him in American English while he remained blindfolded.

It was not until the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit alleging that the U.S. government was responsible for Hamdan’s detention that he was transferred from the secret prison into a regular prison in the U.A.E. and charged with having committed unspecified terrorist offenses.

“The United States is not safer today because Naji Hamdan was imprisoned in the U.A.E.” said Jennie Pasquarella, an ACLU/SC staff attorney. “But if the Obama administration continues Bush-era policies that tolerate arbitrary detention and torture of suspects on behalf of the U.S., Mr. Hamdan’s story is destined to be repeated itself.”

Hamdan lived for two decades in the Los Angeles area, where he ran an auto-parts business and helped manage the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, a mosque and community center. His nightmare began in 2006 when he relocated his family and business to the U.A.E. As the Hamdans tried to board a flight at Los Angeles International Airport, FBI agents separated him from his wife and children, detained him and questioned him for hours. He was eventually released and allowed to travel, but when he returned to Los Angeles in early 2007 to check on his business, he was subject to further intensive FBI surveillance.

Then, in the summer of 2008, FBI agents traveled from Los Angeles to the U.A.E. to question Hamdan further. Shortly thereafter he was detained incommunicado by U.A.E. state security agents.

“I don’t understand why my father was taken away from me,” said Hamdan’s 17 year-old son Khaled Hamdan. “This is so painful. I grew up in the United States, but I feel like my government abandoned me, my family and my father.”

Since Hamdan’s arrest, both U.S. and U.A.E. officials have refused to deny that the U.S. is responsible for his detention. However, the charges against him, which included visiting Islamic websites, are for alleged “crimes” that were not committed in the U.A.E. There is no appeal to the court’s decision.

“The United States betrayed the values of justice and due process at the expense of a beloved leader, father and friend. Everything Naji’s children believed this country stood for was turned upside down and in the process they were separated from their father,” said Hossam Hemdan, the brother of Naji Hamdan who lives in Los Angeles. “We are grateful today, that Hamdan can return to his family.”