NYTimes.com Article: Ill-Fated Path to America, Jail and Death

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Ill-Fated Path to America, Jail and Death

November 5, 2001 

By SOMINI SENGUPTA


 

They found him around 10:30 on the morning of Oct. 23,
lying face up on his cot, inside a first-floor cell in the
Hudson County Correctional Center in New Jersey. Muhammad
Rafiq Butt, a native of Pakistan, had been arrested for
being in the country illegally, one of hundreds who had
been picked up on the basis of tips from an anxious public
in the days after the Sept. 11 attack on the trade center. 

A preliminary autopsy revealed that Mr. Butt, 55, whose
one-year stay in the United States seems to have been
hapless from the very start, had coronary disease and died
of a heart attack. A one-day investigation into the death
by the local prosecutor concluded that no foul play had
been involved. 

So Mr. Butt's body was washed and embalmed according to
Muslim custom. It was placed in a sealed steel coffin and
on the evening of Oct. 27 was shipped in the cargo hold of
Pakistan International Airways Flight 712, from Kennedy
Airport to Lahore, Pakistan - all paid for by the federal
government. Last week, Mr. Butt's family buried him in his
hometown, Jhelum. 

His death obligated the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to do something it had not had to do during the 33
days it had him in custody: talk about him publicly and
explain the circumstances behind his arrest, detention and
death. 

It was revealed that he had been picked up after a tip to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation from the pastor of a
church near his home in South Ozone Park, Queens. His sole
crime was overstaying his visitor visa. It took the F.B.I.
a day to determine that it had no interest in him for its
investigation into terrorism. He chose to appear at his
deportation hearing without a lawyer, even though he spoke
virtually no English and had little education. From jail,
he made no calls to his relatives, nor to the Pakistani
Consulate in New York. 

No one seriously questions that Mr. Butt's death was
anything but natural. But it does give a rare glimpse into
the process by which the government has detained hundreds
of people since the attacks and how little information is
publicly known about them. For some, including consular
officials and Mr. Butt's relatives, discovering the details
surrounding his death only underscores how little they had
been told about his life in I.N.S. custody. 

Of the more than 1,100 people that law enforcement
authorities have picked up since Sept. 11, about 200 have
been held by the I.N.S. solely for violating the nation's
immigration laws. Federal officials have defended their
enforcement policies. And the United States attorney
general has said that deporting people who are in the
country illegally is not only justifiable but also perhaps
an effective way to root out potential terrorist threats. 

Mr. Butt, it turns out, was waiting to be sent home when he
died. That day, Oct. 23, he and his fellow inmates were
awakened as usual around 4 a.m. He ate breakfast and lay
down on his cot, his cellmate, another Pakistani held on
immigration charges, told authorities. 

That man, whose name was not released, was out of the cell
between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. When he returned, he tried to
wake Mr. Butt. He could not. Guards were called. A jail
doctor pronounced Mr. Butt dead at 11:05. Dr. Lionel
Anicette, the medical director at the correctional center,
said Mr. Butt had had a heart attack - the sort of thing,
he said, that could be "precipitated by stress, sometimes
acute stress." 

Mr. Butt's tale is the quixotic journey of a man who set
out for a new life in America at the sore- back age of 54.
The father of two sons and three daughters, he came for the
usual reasons: to make some money and, in his case, to be
able to marry off his daughters in style. "Whoever have
enough money over there doesn't come over here," is how his
nephew, Muhammad Bilal Mirza, a taxi driver from Brooklyn,
explained Mr. Butt's reasons for emigrating. 

Muhammad Rafiq Butt was born in another era: on Jan. 1,
1946, when what is now Pakistan was still under British
rule. He seems to have had little education. He ran a
clothing store with his older brother, Mansoor. Like many
Pakistani men with strong backs and mouths to feed, Mr.
Butt also spent more than 10 years traveling back and forth
as a laborer in oil fields in Qatar and Dubai. 

Last year, he got lucky: the United States government
granted him a visitor visa, and he came to New York on
Sept. 24. But in New York his luck ran out. His hair was
gray, deep lines set in around his mouth. He had little
success scratching around for work. "Who hires a 54-,
55-year-old guy?" Mr. Mirza said. "He has no paper. He
don't speak English very well." 

Driving a cab was out of the question; Mr. Butt had never
been behind the wheel of a car. He sold newspapers on the
street for a while. He filled in at a deli. A few months
before his arrest, he found a job stacking boxes of sweets
at a popular Pakistani cafe in Jackson Heights. 

Sometimes, Mr. Mirza said, he gave his uncle a little cash
to get by; $20 went a long way. "He no smoke, he no drink,
he don't go nowhere," is how the nephew put it. The last
time he saw his uncle, the older man had come over to his
house, Mr. Mirza said. He told him he had had enough of
this rat race. He wanted to go home to his family in time
for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Nov.
17. 

When the authorities arrested Mr. Butt, they wrote this of
his assets: "Subject has $0.00 in his/her possession." His
property receipt at the jail shows three items: a laminated
identification card from Pakistan; a copy of his Pakistani
passport; and an "envelope with misc. writing on it." 

According to documents obtained from the I.N.S. under the
Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Butt came to the attention
of the authorities on Sept. 13, from "lead No. 1556." 

That was a call from St. Anthony's Church to report that
two vans - one white, one dark - had stopped outside the
apartment Mr. Butt shared with three Pakistani men on 125th
Street in South Ozone Park in Queens. 

"When the doors of these vans were opened, at least six (6)
Middle Eastern males exited from each vehicle and
immediately went into the residence," one document states. 

The pastor at St. Anthony's, the Rev. James Mueller,
confirmed that he had called the F.B.I. to report the van
siting and two other incidents that he heard about from
"parishioners who were afraid." He declined to say anything
more. 

Lead No. 1556 led an F.B.I. special agent, along with an
I.N.S. officer and two New York City detectives, to knock
on Mr. Butt's door on Sept. 19. Asked for his papers, he
could produce no more than photocopied pages of a passport
and a visa that had expired last December. The F.B.I.
arrested him, but he turned out to be of no use to its
investigation. Early the next morning, the bureau turned
him over to the I.N.S., which filed deportation papers and
sent him to the Hudson County jail. 

The customary basic medical examination at the jail showed
a man in normal health. He was deemed to be at no risk of
suicide. His blood pressure was normal: 100 over 70. He
complained only of a pain in his mouth, and a jail dentist,
on Oct. 1, diagnosed gingivitis and prescribed an
antibiotic. 

Yet like much of Mr. Butt's life, the thing that killed him
was revealed only after his death.A preliminary autopsy
showed that his coronary arteries had narrowed. 

In hindsight, the gingivitis could have served as a flag
for a heart ailment, said Emily Hornaday, a spokeswoman for
the state medical examiner's office: gum disease is
sometimes found among heart patients. But the medical
director at the jail, Dr. Anicette, said that it was hardly
routine to call for a cardiologist just because a patient
had gingivitis. Besides, he said, the inmate never
complained of chest pains, nor told a doctor about a heart
problem. 

Mr. Butt's one opportunity to make his case before an
immigration judge came at a hearing on Oct. 15, almost a
month after he was arrested. But he appeared without a
lawyer. At his side was only an Urdu interpreter, who,
according to Mr. Butt's I.N.S. files, seems to have helped
him check boxes and sign his name, in Urdu, on countless
forms. 

At the hearing, before Judge Daniel A. Meisner, Mr. Butt
accepted what is called a voluntary departure order. He was
to be sent home straight from jail. Why he remained there,
eight days later, is a mystery. The I.N.S. contends that it
requested travel documents from the Pakistani Consulate,
but consulate officials say they heard nothing from the
agency until word of Mr. Butt's death. 

Today, Mr. Butt's nephew, Mr. Mirza, says he is still
bewildered by what happened to his uncle in jail. Why did
he never call? Why did the government hold him when he was
useless to its investigation and wanted to be sent home?
Mr. Mirza said he learned of his uncle's whereabouts only
when another Pakistani inmate called to tell the family of
Mr. Butt's detention. 

"Maybe he's upset and he don't understand what they're
asking - the I.N.S.," Mr. Mirza said. "Nobody says, `You
don't have to tell my consulate, you don't have to tell my
relatives."' 

What Mr. Butt actually told anyone will most likely remain
a mystery. His wishes can be gleaned only in the series of
checked boxes and official statements, contained in his
I.N.S. files. 

For instance, on a form dated Sept. 20, when he was first
taken into I.N.S. custody, he is asked whether he wanted
his consulate informed. The "No" box is marked with an "X."
Next to it stands his signature. 

On another document, also dated Sept. 20, is this now-eerie
first- person account, typed above his signature: "I admit
that I am in the United States illegally, and I believe I
do not face harm if I return to my country," the statement
reads. "I wish to return to my country as soon as
arrangements can be made to effect my departure. I
understand I may be held in detention until my departure." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/05/nyregion/05JOUR.html?ex=1005980351&ei=1&en=562428e36e9e0e71



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