EDMONDS – Safouh Hamoui could hear the screams of people being tortured while he was interrogated.
It happened more than once.
The last time, Hamoui, a pilot in the Syrian Air Force, had safely landed a plane carrying government officials in a sandstorm in Syria, he said. He was accused of trying to kill the officials in the difficult landing.
“I saved their lives, the people,” said Hamoui, 51, who now lives in Lynnwood and owns and operates the Mediterranean Market in Edmonds.
But Hamoui was fired from his air force job. Previously, he had spoken to his superiors about his concerns about the war in Lebanon, where some of his friends had been killed. He was taken in for questioning then, and again when his wife took English lessons.
He witnessed atrocities by the Syrian government, he said. After the airplane incident in 1991, the writing was on the wall.
“He became the man who knew too much,” said Diane Butler, one of his immigration attorneys here.
Not only is torture common in Syria, but so are disappearances of people who have had disagreements with the government – the Syrian branch of the Baath party of Iraq’s deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, Hamoui said.
“They make it look like an accident,” said his daughter, Nadin Hamoui.
All of that is why Hamoui sent his family out of the country in 1992 and soon followed them. And it is why a federal appeals court on Nov. 8 threw out a U.S. deportation order against Hamoui, his wife, Hanan Ismail, and daughters Suzon, Nadin and Rham.
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was unanimous. Judge William Canby Jr. wrote for the panel that the Board of Immigration Appeals abused its discretion by denying the Hamouis relief under the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty that prevents people from being deported to places where they are likely to be tortured or killed.
The court ordered immigration officials to reopen Hamoui’s case and give the family any relief required by the treaty.
Hamoui’s lawyers will not only try to win the case under the torture treaty, Butler said, but they will try to gain permanent resident status for him and his family. That would protect the Hamouis against any change in conditions in Syria that could give the U.S. government cause to send them back, she said.
The Hamouis applied for asylum when they first arrived in the U.S. But a series of mistakes by their attorneys at the time hampered their case, they said – a point made by the appeals court judge in the ruling.
They were told to return to Syria in 2000 but, on the advice of their attorney at the time, took their chances and ignored the order. On Feb. 22, 2002 – Eid AlFetr, Islam’s holiest day, Hamoui said – he, his wife and Nadin were arrested and taken to a detention center in Seattle.
The family was among 314,000 immigrants with unresolved deportation orders who were arrested following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Butler said. Then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued the order, the “absconder initiative,” she said.
Nadin Hamoui and her mother were held for nine months. They were released after her mother had a seizure as a result of her Crohn’s Disease, Nadin said. Safouh was released a month later.
“That was a very tough time, very horrible,” Safouh Hamoui said.
He was worried about his family, and he was in a room with 25 other immigrants from multiple nations, he said – with one toilet and one shower.
The FBI cleared him of any connection to terrorists in his first five minutes of detention, he said. “They shook my hand, I remember,” he said.
Hamoui’s oldest son, Sam, ran the Mediterranean Market with help from others in the community. The younger children moved between homes of those who were willing to put them up, Hamoui said. He credited the Arab American Community Coalition with much of the help.
“Without this wonderful community, I would not even survive or even be here,” he said.
Hamoui opened his store shortly after arriving in the United States when he was unable to afford the $40,000 necessary to be certified as a pilot, he said.
“Our dignity does not allow us to ask for assistance,” he said.
The three oldest children, Sam, 26, Suzon, 24, and Nadin, 22, have all graduated from Meadowdale High School. Sam is a fuel-products distributor, Suzon is a stay-at-home mom in California, and Nadin works for a law firm in downtown Seattle.
The youngest two children, Rham, 17, and Mohammed, 15, still attend Meadowdale. Mohammed is a U.S. citizen by virtue of having been born here, when his mother visited relatives in California in 1989.
Hamoui has nothing but praise for the people in his adopted hometown.
“They are so nice. I love this place,” he said. “They are such nice and wonderful people.”
Hamoui holds no ill will toward the U.S. government for trying to deport him or for his detention. He came to America for its reputation for freedom, justice and democracy, he said.
“I don’t give up on America, I still believe in the justice,” he said. “I still believe a small drop in the sea will not change the color of the sea.”
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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