Cyrus Kar, a 43 year old, former SEAL from Los Angeles has filed a federal suit with help from the ACLU suing for damages due to what he claims is an unlawful detention.
An aspiring Iranian-American filmmaker who spent nearly two months in a prison in Iraq without being charged has sued Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials, calling the government's detention policies unconstitutional.
Cyrus Kar, 45, of Los Angeles seeks unspecified damages and sweeping changes in the government's detention policies overseas.
Update [2006-7-9 12:54:24 by guyermo]:
Thanks to
little for providing links to the ACLU filing.
Read it online (.pdf)
Download it for later consumption.
The reason he was detained was because they found parts in the taxi he was riding in that could concievably be used to make bombs (Repubs love that dual-use technology). They weren't his. They just happened to be there.
In the U.S. being held for 2 months without charges would be false imprisonment. In Iraq?
"This case highlights the effectiveness of our detainee review process," spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston said following Kar's release.
Right. Effective. Why did you release him, again? Oh yeah...
He was released July 10 after his family sued, accusing the federal government of violating his civil rights and holding him after the FBI cleared him of suspicion.
This whole situation is fairly ironic (though no less disturbing) once you find out why he was there:
Kar was taken into custody in May 2005 after he visited Iraq to make a documentary film about Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who wrote the world's first human rights charter.
Source
I hope he wins his suit, and that even if he doesn't win damages, the Judge orders a review of detention practices. Whether or not he has jurisdiction or order changes (being the military and in Iraq) is a question I'm not qualified to answer.