🚀 go-pugleaf

On 27 May 2004 19:57:29 -0700, Jimmy_Ray@hotmail.com (ComeInPeace)
wrote:

>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59014-2004May26.html
>
>The FBI has graciously, and properly, apologized to Oregon lawyer Brandon 
>Mayfield. Mr. Mayfield, a convert to Islam, was detained for two weeks as a 
>material witness in connection with the March 11 Madrid bombings. He was 
>released and exonerated when the FBI conceded that a fingerprint analysis 
>linking him to a bag of detonators found by Spanish authorities was wrong.
>
>In complex investigations, mistakes happen, and in this case not only the 
>FBI erred. Court records released this week indicate that a court-appointed 
>fingerprint expert paid for by the defense concurred with the bureau's 
>judgment that Mr. Mayfield's prints matched the one on the bag. It also is 
>clear that the FBI did not initially take seriously enough the reservations 
>of Spanish police about its analysis. It has announced that it is 
>reexamining its procedures -- as it should.
>
>But neither the bureau's apology nor its self-examination speak to the 
>fundamental issue of how the government is using the material-witness law. 
>Mr. Mayfield was never charged with a crime, nor would any reasonable 
>prosecutor have brought charges based on what the government knew -- or 
>thought it knew -- about him. Rather, like many people since Sept. 11, 
>2001, he was held under a law that permits the detention, under court 
>supervision, of people with evidence relevant to a court proceeding or 
>grand jury inquiry who might flee if left at large. The law is not new, but 
>its aggressive use at the investigative stage of high-profile cases is. In 
>some instances, the Justice Department's use of it has smacked of 
>preventive detention. The secrecy surrounding these cases makes a thorough 
>assessment impossible. In Mr. Mayfield's case, the government's use of the 
>law allowed the detention and public smearing of a man against whom the 
>government was not prepared to make a case and whom it now concedes to be 
>innocent.

Translation:
The system worked. Justice prevailed...

Mike Smith