Ping pong, air strikes and terrorist groups: testimony resumes in Omar Ameen hearing

The federal government’s three-year-long fight to deport Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen resumed Tuesday, with a former FBI agent describing publicly for the first time the interrogation of the Sacramento resident the day he was arrested and accused of being an ISIS terrorist.

During a daylong hearing in a Van Nuys immigration court, former FBI Special Agent William Denton testified about the Aug. 15, 2018, interview of Ameen at the FBI’s Sacramento-area office, where he said the suspected terrorist leader was served tea, read his Miranda rights and laughed with agents as he discussed his prowess at ping pong.

While Denton and another agent were present for that two-phase interrogation, female FBI agents were back at Ameen’s Arden Arcade apartment interviewing his wife with their children present, Denton testified.

“The purpose was to respect Mr. Ameen and his family’s religious beliefs,” Denton testified. “It was to have only female agents interacting with his wife.”

Denton said the interactions included Ameen noting that his daughter had a doctor’s appointment that he needed to remind his wife of, and Denton replying that agents would help with that.

“I believe I said that we had female agents that were with his wife and that they would be able to ensure that his daughter made the appointment,” Denton said.

The testimony marked the first public disclosure of how Ameen was treated in the hours following his arrest, which came after the Iraqi government sought his extradition to face charges in the 2014 slaying of an Iraqi police officer in his hometown of Rawah.

The extradition effort failed after a federal magistrate judge in Sacramento ordered Ameen’s release from the Sacramento County Main Jail last April, writing that prosecutors’ arguments for his removal from the United States were “dubious” and that Ameen’s defense lawyers had produced evidence that Ameen actually was 600 miles away in Turkey at the time the police officer was slain.

Despite that, federal officials removed Ameen from the jail and drove him to a detention facility in McFarland in Southern California, where he watched court proceedings Tuesday and Wednesday through a video hookup, occasionally interrupting an Arabic interpreter with complaints that he could not understand some of the testimony.

Ameen’s lawyers have insisted that he has no ties to any terrorist groups and have said that if he is returned to Iraq to face trial - for a slaying they say he did not commit - he faces the likelihood of being executed.

Oakland attorney Siobhan Waldron and Rachelle Barbour, Ameen’s federal defender in Sacramento, have been fighting to keep him from being deported, and Waldron has asked the immigration court to suppress the video of Ameen’s interrogation by Denton.

The judge in Tuesday’s hearing noted that Waldron has argued the FBI used “coercive interrogation techniques” during the interview, and the defense has claimed the FBI made references to Ameen’s wife and children during the interrogation that could have been perceived as warnings about his family’s safety.

Ameen’s lawyers want much of the evidence the FBI gathered thrown out, arguing that it includes contradictory and incorrect claims made by witnesses whose identities have not been disclosed.

The government contends that Ameen lied to the FBI and on his application to come to the United States, falsely claiming he had no ties to terrorist groups and saying that his father had been killed by al-Qaida when he actually died of a stroke in a hospital.

This week’s hearings are the latest in a series of sporadic court sessions that began in May and continued Wednesday with Waldron grilling Denton about his 2018 interview of Ameen.

In Tuesday’s testimony, Denton described an interview in an FBI office that took place with Ameen seated in a chair without handcuffs or shackles. Denton said he was dressed in a suit and unarmed, and that Ameen was given his Miranda rights at the outset orally and in writing.

He added that he never yelled during the session, although “there were aspects of the interview where I think my voice levels were raised.”

“We provided Mr. Ameen with tea, which is one thing we thought was culturally sensitive in the Muslim world,” Denton said. “We offered him time to pray if he needed to, as well as the ability to use the bathroom or wash if needed.”

The agents offered Ameen halal food, and Denton said Ameen’s emotions ranged from laughter to being upset at various times.

“I think Mr. Ameen went through a variety of emotions throughout that interview, from laughing to at one point crying,” Denton testified. “At one point we were talking about the fact that he was the ping pong champion of Rawah, and just sort of everyone in the room was laughing at his ping pong status.”

Ameen became upset when Denton asked him if anyone had sent him to the United States, and became upset again when asked about one of his brothers who had been the target of an anti-terror airstrike that either killed or injured the brother’s children, Denton said.

“The concern that we had at the FBI was that given the information we had about his family’s direct ties to terrorism that Mr. Ameen himself posed a threat to the United States in either supporting terrorism or that he himself was here to commit an act of terrorism,” Denton said. “In addition, we were aware that he had made certain representations regarding his immigration refugee application to come into the United States, which was also contradicting information we had gathered as part of our investigation.”

“His family members were wanted for terrorist-related activities in Iraq.”

Denton said Ameen claimed at one point that one of his brothers had been kidnapped by a terrorist group, when the FBI believes he instead had been arrested by anti-terror forces from the Iraqi government.

The defense has disputed much of the evidence the FBI claims to have gathered, noting that one unnamed witness told agents Ameen’s uncle founded al Qaida in Iraq in 2004, while another witness said that uncle died before 2004.

Waldron pressed Denton Wednesday on why he repeatedly mentioned to Ameen that he wanted to make certain Ameen’s wife and children were kept safe.

“I really do care about your wife and daughters and sons and we are going to do what we can to make sure they are OK,” Waldron quoted the former FBI agent as telling Ameen in 2018.

“I think I just told him he was safe, there’s no one in the United States who wants to hurt him, that he did not need to worry about his safety while speaking to us,” Denton explained. “I don’t think I mentioned whether or not there was a threat to his family. I’m not aware of one.”

Waldron also elaborated on Ameen becoming upset when Denton asked if anyone had sent him to the United States, saying Amen answered the question this way: “No, I want to live in peace. I want to sleep, when I sleep, I do not want to fear my door being kicked in. I want my family to grow up.”

Under questioning later from a government attorney, Denton said he came away from the interview believing that Ameen had not been honest in answering his questions about Ameen family members’ alleged ties to terrorist groups.

“There’s nothing that he said about his family members’ involvement in terrorism that we didn’t already have supporting information for in our investigation,” Denton said. “... So, at the conclusion of the interview I didn’t believe that he had ben completely forcoming with regard to his family’s involvement in terrorism.”

The Ameen case has drawn international attention, continued legal efforts to pry loose sealed FBI documents and led to Sacramento city leaders appealing to the Biden administration to intervene and return Ameen to his family in Sacramento.

But the government has continued it efforts to return Ameen to Iraq, and Denton said the FBI’s investigation had turned up evidence linking Ameen to terrorist groups.

“We went into that interview with information that suggested that Mr. Ameen had direct ties to active members of a terrorist organization,” Denton said. “These individuals are very dangerous, and it was important for me to communicate to Mr. Ameen that, if he had information with regards to a current terror attack or some piece of information, he needed to be honest with us in that interview.

“And if there was a concern as to providing us that information that he or his family members might be in danger that we could protect them.”

This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 8:49 AM.