You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

FBI Threatened Innocent Prisoner’s Family with Torture

HeadlineOct 26, 2007

Newly disclosed court documents reveal an innocent Egyptian national falsely confessed to a crime after FBI agents threatened to torture his family. Abdallah Higazy was jailed for a month as a suspected accomplice to the 9/11 attacks. FBI agents wanted him to admit to having a special pilot’s radio near the World Trade Center on 9/11. An interrogator told him his family would face “torture” and “hell” if he didn’t confess. Higazy later said: “I knew I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew my family was in danger. … If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger.” The details were included in an appeals court ruling reinstating Higazy’s civil case against the FBI over his mistreatment. But within minutes of that ruling, the court withdrew its opinion and removed Higazy’s account of his ordeal. Higazy’s interrogator, Michael Templeton, has not contested that the confession was coerced.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top