[Ppnews] Muslim Ex - Inmate Alleges Prison Torture

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October 3, 2007


Muslim Ex - Inmate Alleges Prison Abuse

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:54 a.m. ET

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) -- A former inmate who says federal prison 
workers in Illinois defiled his Quran and tortured him with a 
nightstick when he complained has filed a civil rights lawsuit 
alleging he and other Muslims were mistreated at the prison.

Guards allegedly placed Hakeem Shaheed's Quran on a spit-stained 
floor, then assaulted him with a baton in 2005 when he reported 
alleged abuses to Justice Department investigators, according to the 
lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis.

Shaheed, 48, was transferred by wheelchair the next day to a federal 
prison in Terre Haute, Ind., where he lived in the ''highly secure 
environment'' of death row to protect him. He was released last year, 
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Web site, and now lives 
in Atlantic City, N.J.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for the alleged abuses.

The complaint does not detail the abuses targeting other Muslim prisoners.

A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman declined comment Tuesday because the 
litigation was pending.

Shaheed was a practicing Muslim imprisoned at the Marion lockup in 
southern Illinois from April 1996 to early October 2005, according to 
the lawsuit. Specifics about his convictions were not immediately available.

After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims at the prison 
''suffered much mistreatment by guards and employees at the prison,'' 
Shaheed alleged.

He reported some of mistreatment to various authorities, including 
agents with the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General in 
May 2005, then again three months later, the lawsuit claims.

The next month a prison lieutenant allegedly ''intentionally 
humiliated him by putting his hands on Shaheed's head and squeezing 
the inmate's kufi'' -- his religious knitted hat -- ''in an obvious 
attempt to insult plaintiff's religion.''
Shaheed reported that in October 2005, then found ''various Marion 
prison guards and employees determined to torture and otherwise 
physically and mentally abuse'' him.

The lawsuit alleges that unidentified prison workers ground a baton 
into his spine and at one point pressed it into his pants. Assailants 
also twisted Shaheed's toes and put a chain over one of them, then 
''yanked it extremely hard,'' according to the lawsuit.

_______________

Ben Elson
People's Law Office
1180 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622
Ph: 773-235-0070
Fax: 773-235-6699



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