Washington - The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that top justice officials in the administration of former president George W Bush could not be held liable for alleged discrimination in the arrest of a Pakistani man after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that former attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has held on to his job in the Obama administration, could not be sued for mistreatment that occurred when they allegedly singled out Muslim men using race and religion as their guidelines, the Los Angeles Times reported online.
Justice Anthony M Kennedy wrote the majority decision, arguing that it was not surprising that a "legitimate policy" of law enforcement aimed at finding suspects linked to the attacks "would produce a disparate, incidental impact on Arab Muslims."
"The (September 11, 2001) attacks were perpetrated by 19 Arab Muslim hijackers who counted themselves members in good standing of al-Qaeda, an Islamic fundamentalist group," Kennedy wrote.
The case was brought by a Pakistani Muslim man, Javaid Iqbal of Brooklyn, New York, who was among more than 1,200 people detained, interrogated and often denied access to lawyers in the weeks and months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Iqbal's case, as with many others, charges were never filed. He claims to have been held for months in solitary confinement and to have been stripped, kicked and punched. He was in the US illegally and was later deported to Pakistan.
Monday's decision, which reversed findings by two lower courts, applied only to Iqbal's case. But typical of Supreme Court decisions, it is likely to apply broadly to similar lawsuits.
The decision left open Iqbal's right to sue jail officials who were directly responsible for his alleged abuse.
Justice David Souter, who dissented in the decision, said that Iqbal should have been allowed to try to prove his claim that "Ashcroft and Mueller were at the very least aware of the discriminatory detention policy and condoned it and perhaps even took part in devising it."
The unfair detention cases are separate from the political debate about whether the new administration under US President Barack Obama should prosecute former Bush officials who drafted policies allowing harsh interrogation tactics against overseas prisoners in the war on terrorism.
Obama has not ruled out the possibility of prosecution, saying the decision will be left to Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads the Justice Department.
Days after taking office in January, Obama banned the harsh techniques such as
