US officials cant sued for abuse of Pakistani inmate: Supreme Court

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court says FBI Director Robert Mueller and ex-Attorney General John Aschcroft cannot be sued by a former 9/11 detainee for alleged abuse.The justices reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed a lawsuit brought by Javaid Iqbal to go forward. Mr Iqbal, from Pakistan, argued the two officials were responsible for a policy that saw him singled out for abuse on the basis of his religion and race. The court ruled that his complaint failed to back up this claim. Mr Iqbal spent some six months in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Brooklyn in 2002. In his lawsuit, he said he had suffered physical and verbal abuse and had been singled out for mistreatment because of ethnic and religious discrimination. The government argued that there was nothing to link Mr Mueller and Mr Ashcroft to the alleged abuse of Mr Iqbal. Mr Iqbal was arrested in November 2001 on charges unrelated to terrorism. His lawsuit alleged that two months later he was moved to a prison in New York where he was held for more than 150 days in solitary confinement. He was cleared of any links to terrorism and deported to Pakistan in January 2003 after pleading guilty to fraud.