Palestinian - American Released from US Jail

US Attorney General Janet Reno has agreed to release Mazen Al-Najjar, a former Palestinian professor at the University of South Florida, following a ruling by an Immigration Judge last week that he should be freed on $8,000 bail.

According to the Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Najjar has been held for over three years without charge and on the basis of "evidence" withheld from him, his attorneys and the public. Reno confirmed to Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich), one of the leading defenders of due process rights in Congress, that she would no longer block Najjar's bail and that he would be released.

Najjar had been one of the few people still jailed on the basis of secret evidence.

Last week, the government released Anwar Haddam, who had just started his fifth year of secret evidence incarceration, after he was granted political asylum by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The actions of the Justice Department in releasing Haddam and Najjar come in the context of burgeoning support in both houses of Congress for legislation abolishing the use of secret evidence, which seems very likely to become law. Both the Gore and Bush campaigns endorsed this legislation.

A broad coalition of groups in the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, including ADC, have led the fight against secret evidence.