Johnson: Is this the way to fight a war on terror?

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 3, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More News Columns & Blogs

When it was all over, the short, stocky, heavily bearded man in the dingy white skullcap and olive-green jumpsuit rose from his chair, looked left and stared longingly at his wife and four children seated in the first row of the courtroom.

Instinctively, the man put his hands behind his back, never taking his eyes off his family, as a U.S. marshal approached.

The handcuffs never came out, the marshal gently tapping him to start walking. Mouthing "goodbye," the man was led to a nearby open door, his unshackled hands still outstretched behind him.

In a different time, the outcome in the downtown Denver courtroom could have been a cause of relief, happiness and vindication for Haroon Rashid.

The government on Thursday told U.S. District Court Judge Lewis T. Babcock it was dropping all charges against the 35-year-old van driver and sometime car mechanic from Lakewood.

It was a remarkable reversal in that this was the very same Haroon Rashid that former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft had crowed about in a speech three years ago, labeling him the leader of a Denver terrorist cell whose apprehension in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks was proof that the country was winning the war on terror.

On Thursday, though, Haroon Rashid would not walk from the courthouse a free man. The U.S. Marshal's Service immediately handed him over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who have for three years sought to deport the man, long a permanent legal resident, to his native Pakistan.

Is Haroon Rashid really a terrorist, as notations on his thick case file indicate, or - as his family and attorney insist - simply a victim of mistaken identity, confused by federal investigators with the similarly named Haroon Rashid Aswat, who was arrested earlier this year in Africa for complicity in the 2005 London terror bombings?

"This has never been a case of mistaken identity," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid, the lead prosecutor in the case, firmly informed me as he rushed to a news conference on the courthouse steps.

Eid criticized me for printing the assertions of the family and the man's attorney in an earlier column.

OK, I replied, if this Haroon Rashid is, indeed, the terrorist he's been made out to be, why had every charge against him just been dropped?

Troy Eid, after a long pause, replied that evidence had been uncovered that the man had traveled to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border battlefields, stayed there nine months and had sought to purchase weapons with which he'd vowed to engage U.S. forces.

So rather than prosecute him here on terror charges, you would rather have the government fly him back to the battlefields?

"We believe it is best if he is no longer in this country," Jeff Dorschner, a U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman, interjected.

Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, Haroon Rashid's attorney, stormed from the courtroom after the hearing.

"My client is a loving father and husband, a very nice man who has never done anything wrong," he fumed. "They fingered the wrong man and they just won't admit it."

"The government was impotent in the wake of 9/11. So it rushed out and picked up the most available Pakistani they could find and put him in jail. This today is the government covering its ass, and you can put THAT in quotes."

Haroon Rashid has now served more time in jail, Judge Babcock noted, than he would have had he been sentenced upon conviction. On Wednesday. Haroon Rashid filed a writ with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn the deportation order.

The man's wife, Saima, 35, a U.S. citizen since 1995, stood outside the courthouse with her brother, Irfan Kamran, 36, watching her four children, ages 11 to 2, being interviewed by the gathered media.

The middle child, Talha, 9, was pleading to the cameras for Gov. Bill Owens to pardon his father of the misdemeanor assault conviction that later, through a series of hurried and last-minute court rulings and orders, was elevated to a felony and formed the basis of the deportation order.

"Did (Haroon) ever go to Afghanistan?" Irfan Kamran repeated. "No."

He, Saima and their father, also fingered as terrorists in John Ashcroft's speech, remain charged with conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors told the judge that dismissal of charges against Haroon Rashid would help the prosecution of others charged in the case.

A Nov. 9 hearing has been scheduled.

Irfan Kamran shrugs it all off.

"We know that maybe this is the government policy, post-9/11. We have been here for 12 years. We love Denver more than our own hometown. This is our country and we love it as much as anyone," he said.

His brother-in-law, he said, has given his fate over to God.

"He knows more than any of us that he was a Muslim in a post-9/11 country. If Allah wills he remain here, he will."

Saima Rashid is standing in a corner, trying her best to avoid the cameras. America is her children's country, the only place they have known, she said.

"We have to be patient now and pray the situation gets better for everyone," she said, "so we can live without fear of being targeted and harassed.

"We have faith in God. And until God decides, my husband will be here. That is our faith, our hope."

Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-954-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News