Today’s Washington Post reports:

Jailed the night of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the Algerian air force lieutenant with an expired visa has spent the past 26 months in federal prisons, much of that time in solitary confinement — even though the FBI formally concluded in November 2001 that he had no connection to terrorism. …

Two years after the attacks, federal Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. would examine Benatta’s case and find a study in governmental excess.

Schroeder issued an unsparing report in September, writing that federal prosecutors and FBI and immigration agents engaged in a “sham” to make it appear that Benatta was being held for immigration violations. Prosecutors trampled on legal deadlines intended to protect his constitutional rights and later offered explanations for their maneuvers that “bordered on ridiculousness,” Schroeder wrote. And he found that the government compounded its mistakes by failing to act once it was clear that Benatta was not an accomplice to terrorists.

Well, as long as it all makes Andrew Sullivan, fearless leader of the 101st Keyboarder Brigade feel safer, we say it was well worth it.

Welcome to Hotel Ashcroft
You can be exonerated anytime you want, but you can never leave