Wife: `He did nothing wrong'. Husband held as witness in Spain bombing.
There is much about post-9.11 America that has taken our country in directions that we as a people could never have imagined. What is perhaps most disturbing, at least to this American, is the realization that the presumption of innocence can be trumpred merely by using the words "suspected terrorist". What makes this even worse is that a man's religious belief seems to be part and parcel of what can only be decsribed as his persecution.
ALOHA, Ore. -- Mona Mayfield answers her front door with a smile and an outstretched hand. She is pleasant and polite, going out of her way to make a stranger feel at home.
But her swollen eyes betray her. In a moment she is crying and barely able to speak.
"He did nothing wrong," she says, her voice heavy with grief.
She is referring to her husband, Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center as a material witness in connection with the March train bombings in Madrid, Spain. A fingerprint on a plastic bag led to his arrest.
Mayfield, 37, a converted Muslim, is the first American linked to the bombings.
Somehow, Mayfield's fingerprint (or at least something similar to his fingerprint) showed up on a plastic bag containing detonators in a stolen van in Madrid, just hours after the recent train bombings there. Here's what's odd, though: Mayfield has not been outside the US since 1993, and it's been two years since he so much as left the state of Oregon.
Spanish police aren't even certain that the prints are a conclusive match to Mayfield. They don't even have any conclusive evidence that Mayfield has ever been to Spain. Ah, but Mayfield is a converted Muslim. Ergo, he is a terrorist. In this day and age, what other conclusion can a red-blooded American to come to? Apparently, law enforcement officials agree, and they are more than willing to destroy a man's life and livelihood in the name of waging the war against terror.
U.S. officials say they continue to believe the print is Mayfield's, but they also are struggling to develop a theory. The possibilities range from Mayfield being an unwitting accomplice to him having been "completely involved" in the bombings, said one official.
Material-witness warrants are a tool -- much employed after the Sept. 11 attacks -- that enable the government to hold someone whose testimony is considered material to an ongoing criminal case and who is considered a flight risk....
Now, Mona says, her husband's law practice is probably destroyed because of the bad publicity. Family friend and attorney Thomas Nelson of Portland voiced the same concern, saying no client would want to be associated with a lawyer "even tangentially related to terrorism."
Brandon Mayfield's life has now been turned into a Kafka novel. To anyone familiar with "The Trial", Mayfield's situation has an all-too-familiar ring. The problem, though, is that this is not a novel. This is a man's life we are talking about here, a man who deserves better- to be charged or released. Given that the "evidence" against Mayfield is circumstantial at best, Mayfield will hopefully be allowed to resume his life soon. Who is going to give him back his reputation? Or his law practice? Certainly not John Ashcroft and George W. Bush.
By all available evidence, Brandon Mayfield is a peaceful and honorable man who has lived his life in accordance with the tenets of his faith. The fact that his faith is Islam automatically makes him an enemy of the state in the eyes of many Americans. Regardless of what any of us may feel about Mayfield's religious beliefs, though, he is an American, and deserves the same due process rights any American would have under our Constitution. Isn't it amazing how quickly these rights disappear when you can use "material witness" and "terrorism" in the same sentence?
Where will you be when they come for you? Who will stand up for you? If this is allowed to continue long enough, the answer will be "no one."
