Office of the Inspector General

[orolan]

This may have been posted before but if it was, I apologize. I just ran across it, and I must say that the events don't surprise me at all. Emphasis was added by me.

"Based upon a request from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the OIG investigated whether an FBI polygrapher coerced a confession from an individual who was detained in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Specifically, the individual was detained as a material witness after a security guard at a New York hotel reported finding an aviation radio in the safe of the suspect's room, which overlooked the World Trade Center. The individual initially was charged with perjury after he denied to the FBI that he owned the radio, but later was released when the security guard admitted fabricating the allegations about the radio. The individual alleged that during a polygraph examination, an FBI agent allegedly had threatened the individual and his family to coerce his confession. The OIG obtained affidavits from the victim and witnesses as part of its review of this matter. In addition, the OIG's Chief Polygraph Examiner reviewed the FBI agent's polygraph charts for quality control purposes and concurred with the FBI polygrapher's assessment that the individual had been deceptive when he denied owning the radio. The OIG submitted an investigative report to the U.S. Attorney's Office concluding that the evidence did not substantiate the allegation that the FBI polygrapher had threatened the individual. The U.S. Attorney's Office subsequently forwarded the OIG's findings to a United States District Court Judge in the Southern District of New York."

http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/2003_01a/

[George W. Maschke]

Orolan,

The foregoing case is that of Abdallah Higazy; the polygrapher involved was FBI Special Agent Michael Templeton. The FBI's deliberate policy of not recording polygraph examinations ensured that Higazy's credible allegations regarding Templeton's conduct would not be verifiable.

You'll find the text of the OIG report here:

http://antipolygraph.org/documents/higazy-oig-report.shtml

See also the message board thread, Polygraph helps coerce false confession.