Abuse lawsuit against two top U.S. officials denied

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit by a Pakistani man against a former U.S. attorney general and the FBI director claiming abuse while he was imprisoned in New York after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. high court overturned a ruling that Javaid Iqbal, who was held for more than a year after the attacks, could sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The decision by the court's conservative majority appeared to be narrow, mainly limited to the facts of the case, although it could be cited as precedent in other lawsuits.

The civil case involved different legal issues than recent demands by human rights groups to hold former officials of the Bush administration accountable for what they describe as torture of terrorism suspects.

Iqbal, a Muslim, said in the lawsuit that he had suffered verbal and physical abuse, including unnecessary strip searches and brutal beatings by guards. He said he had been singled out because of unlawful ethnic and religious discrimination.

In the court's majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said Iqbal's lawsuit failed to contain sufficient facts of purposeful, unlawful discrimination by Ashcroft and Mueller or that they deprived him of clearly established constitutional rights.

AFTER SEPTEMBER 11

In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, U.S. authorities detained 762 noncitizens, almost all Muslims or Arabs. Many of those held at the federal prison in Brooklyn suffered abuse, the U.S. Justice Department's inspector general has found.

Ashcroft and Mueller argued they have qualified legal immunity because any misconduct was done by lower-level officials and they had no personal involvement in or knowledge of the alleged abuse.

Kennedy agreed. He said each government official generally can be held liable only for his or her own misconduct and rejected holding supervisors liable for misdeeds by subordinates.

Kennedy also ruled the roundup did not prove discriminatory intent. He said the September 11 attacks were carried out by Arab Muslim hijackers, followers of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. "It should come as no surprise that" Arab Muslims were arrested and detained, he said.

The issue before the Supreme Court involved only whether Iqbal's lawsuit against Ashcroft and Mueller could continue and did not address his claims of mistreatment against other lower-ranking current and former government officials.

Iqbal sued about 30 other officials, including the warden at the detention facility and the director of the federal Bureau of Prisons. He seeks unspecified damages.

The court's four liberal justices dissented. "There is no principled basis for the majority's disregard of the allegations linking Ashcroft and Mueller to their subordinates' discrimination," Justice David Souter wrote in his dissent.

Iqbal was arrested for having false Social Security papers. He pleaded guilty in 2002, was released in 2003 and deported to Pakistan. The lawsuit was filed in 2004.