Among the mostly anonymous post-Sept. 11 detainees, Rabih Haddad has gained a high profile, with regular protests by supporters and, on Tuesday, a visit from U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).
Yet Haddad’s case, and the inquiry into the Islamic charity he co-founded and helps operate, remains a mystery–even to Conyers–shrouded in secrecy by the government as it continues its investigation into terrorism.
Haddad, 41, is being held at the Metropolitan Correction Center in the Loop, in what he describes in a letter to Conyers as solitary confinement in a 6-by-9-foot cell, with no view because the single narrow window of his cell is “whited out.”
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Beyond a visa violation, it is not clear why Haddad is being held or even whether agents had reason to take him into custody. But of the roughly 700 people detained as part of the government’s anti-terrorism campaign–and of the fewer than 400 still in custody–Haddad’s case stands out for the attention it has received.
Because the government has said so little about the case, what is known comes largely from Haddad’s attorneys and from family members.
“I met him for the first time 45 minutes ago,” Conyers said Tuesday morning. “But what I understand is that his reputation is sterling. That’s what makes this even more puzzling: that a person would be singled out in such a clearly unconstitutional way.”
Haddad’s case began Dec. 14. That day, federal agents took into custody the Lebanese citizen at his Ann Arbor home as his wife and four young children looked on.
The same day, agents raided the Bridgeview headquarters of the Global Relief Foundation and froze the group’s finances.
Federal authorities said they were investigating possible links between the Islamic charity, which Haddad helped start in 1992, and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.
Overseas, NATO troops in Kosovo closed the group’s office and detained three employees, saying in a statement the charity was “supporting worldwide terrorist activities” and allegedly planning attacks in the U.S. and Europe.
Those actions effectively closed Global Relief, one of the largest Muslim charities in the U.S. with close to $5 million in donations annually as well as medical, famine and other relief efforts around the world.
Since then Haddad’s attorney, Ashraf Nubani, said federal prosecutors have told them that Haddad and Global Relief are not targets of criminal investigations. Federal prosecutors have declined to comment.
NATO officials, meanwhile, have backpedaled from their claims, releasing the Global Relief employees and saying their inquiry had been completed. No further action is being considered, said NATO spokesman Daz Slaven.
So far, among the few possible connections made public between Global Relief and terrorism is a tenuous link in Texas records between the group’s former treasurer and a Texas imam who has been tied to bin Laden. In addition, a mid-1990s list of audiotapes available from Global Relief included one that featured the ideas of bin Laden’s mentor.
A Canadian relief organization that has worked with Global Relief recently cut its ties to the group, saying it was unhappy with a number of groups that Global Relief was dealing with overseas.
Global Relief said that it, in fact, had severed ties with the Canadian organization.
Nubani said there are facets of Haddad’s career that likely have drawn officials’ attention, though he said they would be considered benign at another time.
“They’re looking for people who were in the area of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and afterwards,” Nubani said. “But people, including Pastor Haddad, came there for different reasons.”
Haddad, said Nubani, worked as a public relations representative for a Saudi-funded aid group from 1988 to 1992. That work took him to Peshawar, the Afghan-Pakistani border town where bin Laden operated.
More recently, Global Relief was allowed by the Taliban to work in Afghanistan delivering food and medical supplies, according to Global Relief.
“They are a strictly humanitarian organization,” said Haddad’s youngest brother, Mazen, a computer consultant in Toronto. Haddad, according to his brother and wife, grew up in Beirut and in the small Lebanese mountain village of Hamana, where his father still runs two clothing boutiques. His parents were Protestant, but they encouraged Haddad and his two brothers to explore other religions.
Haddad took that openness to heart. He studied Buddhism and Hinduism. He had, according to Mazen, a fling as a hippie. But in 1986 he chose Islam and became a passionate, even fervent, believer.
While attending college in the U.S., Haddad married Salma Al-Rushaid, a Kuwaiti citizen also studying in the U.S.
Al-Rushaid said Haddad’s interest in charity work grew more intense as he explored Islam.
In 1988, the couple moved from the U.S. to Pakistan, where Al-Rushaid said they distributed food, taught hygiene to women and children and organized camps for Afghan refugees in Peshawar and Islamabad.
During the next 10 years, they moved to Kuwait, returned to the U.S., where Haddad co-founded Global Relief, then went back to Kuwait.
In fall 1998, they came again to the United States on a tourist visa but knew they wanted to settle in the university town of Ann Arbor.
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Earlier this month, according to Nubani, Haddad appeared before a federal grand jury but invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Other Global Relief employees have been interviewed but none has been charged, Nubani said.
In his Feb. 6 letter to Conyers, Haddad said, “My family has been broken, my wife and children subjected to the worst fears and uncertainties.”
The government also is seeking to deport Haddad’s wife and the three of their four children who are not U.S.-born.
In the letter, he explained his reluctance to testify before the grand jury:
“I have serious concerns about my testimony not because of any wrongdoing, but because my character, personal beliefs and my religion are being questioned and cast in the worst light after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”