FBI forces false confession out of man

[spector7]

FBI forces false confession out of man
Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, October 25, 2007 7:29 PM | permalink
Blackandy says:
Long story short: Man is staying in hotel in NYC during the 9/11/2001 attacks. Hotel empties after attacks and device is found in man's hotel room closet that allows communication with airline pilots. Man is Egyptian national, and FBI questions him. Man denies owning device.
FBI agent threatens that man's family will be tortured in Egypt.

Man confesses, ultimately spending a month in jail before airline pilot shows up at hotel asking for radio left in man's room back. Whoops! Lawsuits ensue.

From Steve Bergstein's Psychosounds blog, where I found this:

"Higazy then realized he had a choice: he could continue denying the radio was his and his family suffers ungodly torture in Egypt or he confesses and his family is spared. Of course, by confessing, Higazy's life is worth garbage at that point, but ... well, that's why coerced confessions are outlawed in the United States."

Good thing the FBI doesn't do this any more. Right?

We never would have known any of this as the US Court of Appeals in Manhattan redacted the description of the torture threats in its decision, but someone posted an unredacted decision on the web for a brief time. And a PDF of that is what's making the rounds now.

Here's the link to a story on the situation from the ABA Journal.

In it, the court claims it redacted the information about the torture threats to protect Higazy and his family. The story doesn't say what they're being protected from.


Link

[overmannr]

Thank you for this. Please re-post the link as the older one is not working right now.

I also have a friend whose life has been destroyed by false confession " we have (names of all his friends) here's statements saying that you raped a little girl so confess now to be jailed for three years with five probation or go to jail for twenty and never be allowed into any place where any child goes ever again"

It baffles me why this is not a major issue. I suppose that when I talk politics with commoners the view is that we do not need to defend criminals. If they are accused than they probably did it and nee do be put away.  And what is funny is the same people admit freely that only a fool trusts police but I suppose the courts are meant to be a filter.

What most people do not know is the "non-compete clause" in most confessions where even if the victim comes to defend you, the victims family, genetic evidence comes to the contrary, time-lines are found to be inconsistent and of course evidence is falsified and threats are issued no lawyer can get you off once you sign a no compete clause.