Undisclosed Locations—Syed Haris Ahmed

Syed Haris Ahmed, a 21-year-old Georgia Tech student who is a naturalized citizen, has the dubious distinction of being one of the few individuals besides Vice President Cheney whose whereabouts are characterized as “undisclosed.”^[1] According to the government, Mr. Ahmed “has been detained in facilities regularly used by the United States Marshals Service to detain pre-trial federal defendants. From the day after his arrest, his location has been known to his lawyer and his family, who have been able to visit with him. The location is not being made public because of the nature of the case.”^[2] This is interesting. Over the past couple of years, only a handful of individuals have been held in “undisclosed locations,” usually in reference to a person accused of terrorism abroad.^[3] Occasionally, however, someone charged with far less sensitive crimes might be held at an undisclosed location. For example, the BTK serial killer—Dennis L. Rader—was, at the time of his arrest, “taken into custody without a fuss … and was … held at an ‘undisclosed location.’”^[4]

Perhaps, then, Mr. Ahmed’s detention at an undisclosed location might not suggest a disturbing pattern of secrecy and maybe it doesn’t signal yet another erosion of American’s civil liberties. On the other hand, one should not be willing to accept the notion that the government can simply remove a person from public view, with only a handful of people allowed to know details of the case. This is especially true when the government’s rationale is logically inconsistent.

According to US Attorney David E. Nahmias, Mr. Ahmed’s case is “the first international terrorism charge filed in Georgia,” and he is accused of providing material support for terrorists under 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(a), apparently with the plan that others would commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries under 18 U.S.C. § 2332b, and conspiring to kill, maim, or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country under 18 U.S.C. § 956.^[5] No other details have been offered.

The term “material support,” as defined in the statute, is fairly broad and includes providing property, currency, lodging, training, expert advice, safehouses, false identification documents, communications equipment, weapons, lethal substances, personnel, and transportation; it does not include providing medicine or religious materials.^[6]

The charges against, and subsequent detention of Mr. Ahmed, are very interesting because US Attorney Nahmias went through great lengths to assure people “that at no time [was the government] aware of immediate danger to the Atlanta area or the United States,”^[7] which strongly suggests that the alleged acts were to be carried out in other countries. In that respect, they are similar to the charges pending against Jose Padilla, who was detained as an enemy combatant in a military brig for years before finally being charged with crimes that bear no relation to the alleged reasons for detaining him in the brig. Mr. Padilla is not currently being held at an undisclosed location. They are also similar to the charges pending against Wesam al Delaema, whose extradition from the Netherlands was almost stopped until the US government assured the Netherlands that Mr. al Delaema would not be sent to Guantanamo. The detention of Mr. Ahmed at an undisclosed location may cause problems for extradition proceedings in other countries if foreign judges determine that a number of layers of assurances are required before they hand over suspects, on the grounds that there may be fears that the individual will be taken to an undisclosed location.

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[1] Dawsonville Man Indicted For Alleged Ties to Terrorism, Associated Press (via AccessNorthGa.com), Apr. 21, 2006.
[2] US Attorney’s Office, Atlanta Man Indicted for Material Support of Terrorism, US Newswire (via Yahoo!), Apr. 20, 2006.
[3] See, e.g., Paul Haven, Pakistan Arrests al-Qaida Suspect Wanted in 1998 Embassy Bombings, Associated Press, Jul. 30, 2004 (Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, arrested in Pakistan, was held at an undisclosed location in Pakistan); Ahmed Al-Haj, Two USS Cole Defendants Sentenced to Die, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Sep. 30, 2004 (Yemen court orders execution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was “one of a number of senior al-Qaida figures who have been held in U.S. custody at undisclosed locations for interrogations since their captures.”); Susan Milligan, et al., Hussein Photographs Spark Military Inquiry, Boston Globe, May 21, 2005 (Saddam Hussein currently being held at an undisclosed location).
[4] Monica Davey, After Years of Taunts and Clues, Arrest is Made in Kansas, N.Y. Times, Feb. 27, 2005.
[5] USAO, supra note 2.
[6] 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(1).
[7] USAO, supra note 2.