Five Israelis who had worked for a moving company based
in New Jersey are being held in U.S. prisons for what the Federal Bureau
of Investigation has described as "puzzling behavior" following
the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York last Tuesday. The
five are expected to be deported sometime soon.
The families of the five, who asked that their names not be released, said
that their sons had been questioned by the FBI for hours on end, had been
kept in solitary confinement for three days, and had been humiliated, stripped
of their clothes and blindfolded.
The mother of one of the young men explained the chain of events as she
understands it to Ha'aretz:
She said that the five had worked for the company, which is owned by an
Israeli, for between two months and two years. They had been arrested some
four hours after the attack on the Twin Towers while filming the smoking
skyline from the roof of their company's building, she said. It appears
that they were spotted by one of the neighbors who called the police and
the FBI.
The mother said that the families and friends of the five in Israel had
known nothing of the men's whereabouts for a number of days.
"When they finally let my son make a phone call for the first time
to a friend in the United States two days ago, he told him that he had
been tortured by the FBI in a basement," the mother said. "He
was stripped to his underwear; he was blindfolded and questioned for 14
hours. They thought that because he has citizenship of a European country
as well as of Israel that he was working for the Mossad [Israel's secret
service]."
Seven FBI agents later stormed the apartment of one of the Israelis, searched
it and questioned his roommate. The Israeli owner of the company, who has
U.S. citizenship, was also questioned. Both men were subsequently released.
The families here complained that the Israeli consulate in New York and
the situation room set up by the Foreign Ministry there to locate missing
Israelis had done nothing to help their sons. The Foreign Ministry told
the families that the FBI had denied holding the five and that the consulate
had chosen to believe the FBI, the mother said.
The five were transferred out of the FBI's facility on Saturday morning
and are now being held in two prisons in New Jersey by the Immigration
and Naturalization Services. They are charged with illegally residing in
the United States and working there without permits.
The Foreign Ministry said in response that it had been informed by the
consulate in New York that the FBI had arrested the five for "puzzling
behavior." They are said to have had been caught videotaping the disaster
and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/
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