Federal judge allows ex-UI football player to sue U.S.

BOISE – A federal judge has said a lawsuit brought by a former University of Idaho football player against U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Department of Homeland Security and others can move forward.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge made the ruling in a written order Monday.

Abdullah al-Kidd, who played for the Vandals under the name Lavoni Kidd, contends that in 2003 the government wrongfully arrested him as a material witness in its unsuccessful computer terrorism case against a fellow student, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen.

A jury acquitted Al-Hussayen of using his computer skills to foster terrorism and of three immigration violations in an eight-week federal trial. It deadlocked on eight other immigration charges, and Al-Hussayen – who was only months from finishing his doctoral study at the UI – was eventually deported to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Kidd was never called to testify in the case. But three weeks after Al-Hussayen was arrested, al-Kidd was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., as a material witness in the Al-Hussayen case. Al-Kidd had planned to board a flight to Saudi Arabia to begin studying Islam on a four-year scholarship.

Al-Kidd spent two weeks in jail before he was granted a detention hearing in Idaho, at which the judge agreed to release him into the custody of his wife. But al-Kidd was prohibited from traveling anywhere but in Idaho, Washington, Nevada and California, and his public defenders said the restrictions and the detention not only cost al-Kidd his scholarship in Saudi Arabia but employment opportunities as well.

Al-Kidd sued, alleging that he was falsely imprisoned, and that the government was guilty of abuse of process. He contended that the arrest warrant was invalid because in order to get the arrest warrant, the FBI gave wrong information about al-Kidd to a U.S. magistrate.

Specifically, the FBI allegedly told the judge that al-Kidd had only a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia, when he had purchased a round-trip ticket. The FBI also allegedly failed to tell the judge that al-Kidd had a wife and children in the U.S., that he was a U.S. citizen, that he had talked with the FBI several times before his arrest and the FBI had never told al-Kidd that he should not travel abroad.