An Algerian asylum applicant who had been detained by the INS for more than two years escaped from a Miami mental hospital and is believed to have left the country. Yahia Meddah, 27, applied for asylum on the basis of his political opinions. Meddah claimed he escaped Algeria under threat from the opposition forces after they had allegedly kidnapped his father and sister and killed many of his relatives. But the INS denied his case because the agency accused him of participating in terrorist activities. The appeal to an immigration judge was denied partially on the basis of secret evidence. Meddah had been detained while his case was on appeal. Meddah had never been charged with any criminal activities and he claimed no involvement with terrorist activities. The escaped detainee had publicly challenged the US government to charge him with a crime if evidence really existed supporting their assertions.

Meddah's case was highlighted in Human Rights Watch's recent report on INS detention procedures (see the September 1998 issue of Siskind's Immigration Bulletin). The report called Meddah's case "one of the most disturbing and complicated cases Human Rights Watch discovered during our extensive research." Meddah had been detained in four local jails, one INS Service Processing Center and three mental hospitals during a two-year period. According to the report, Meddah's prolonged detention and the punitive treatment he received by jail officials had an "extremely negative effect" on his mental health.

The Human Rights Watch report emphasized that despite not being charged with any crime, Meddah was transported to a prison in Pennsylvania in shackles and placed in isolation at the jail. For four consecutive months, he was held in a disciplinary segregation room, subject to 24 hour a day lockdown.

Meddah twice attempted to commit suicide, according to Human Rights Watch. After Meddah attempted to cut his chest with a razor, he was confined naked to a section of the jail called "the hole" and forced to sleep on the floor without a mattress. According to a prison psychiatrist, the abusive treatment received by Meddah caused him severe psychological trauma.

Meddah was transferred between several jails and mental hospitals before ending up at the Krome Service Processing Center detention facility in Miami, Florida. Meddah went on a hunger strike there in the hope that "the INS will do something about my situation." When the INS did not respond, Meddah again attempted suicide by ingesting cleaning fluid. The INS then sent him to a local hospital where Meddah claims he was shackled to the bed for four days until his feet began to bleed.

He was then transferred to the Windmoor Psychiatric Hospital in Miami, the place from which he escaped last month.

INS officials believe Meddah fled to Canada. Human Rights Watch has defended its report saying that the escape does not mean the underlying asylum claim was invalid and that the escape may have been out of desperation relating to his poor treatment in detention.