Appeals court rules against Ashcroft in 9/11 case

A federal appeals court has ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be sued by people who claim they were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11, and called the government practice "repugnant to the Constitution." A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruled Friday that the claims of a former University of Idaho student plausibly suggest Ashcroft purposely used the material witness statute to detain suspects whom he wished to investigate and detain preventively. "We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history," Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote. The ruling allows Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen, to proceed with a lawsuit that claims his constitutional rights were violated when he was detained in 2003 as a material witness in a federal terrorism case. Phone messages left at Ashcroft's Washington D.C. lobbying and law firms were not returned Friday.