Judge rejects Ashcroft's immunity claim [View All]

[cal04]

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft could be called to testify in a lawsuit that claims a student was wrongly imprisoned in a computer terrorism case, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge rejected Ashcroft's argument to toss out the lawsuit because he was entitled to absolute immunity since his position at the Department of Justicewas prosecutorial.

Abdullah al-Kidd, who played football for the University of Idaho, claimed government wrongfully arrested him in the case against a fellow student, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, in 2003.

They both worked for the Islamic Assembly of North America, a Michigan-based charitable organization that federal investigators said funneled money to activities supporting terrorism and published material advocating suicide attacks on the United States.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060928/ap_on_re_us/computer_terrorism_2