(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Asif Merchant, the Pakistani man busted for hiring two undercover FBI agents to be “hitmen” in an Iranian-sponsored assassination plot against Donald Trump, has been held in solitary confinement under squalid conditions since his July 12 arrest, his attorney said in a letter last week.
“The conditions of confinement under which Mr. Merchant is being held are inhumane, intolerable and are interfering with his constitutional right to counsel and to prepare a defense,” attorney Avraham Moskowitz said in a letter last Thursday to presiding U.S. Judge Eric Komitee.
According to Moskowitz, Merchant’s confinement has restricted their ability to review discovery. The eighth floor of the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, where he’s being held, only has one small conference room. When the room is occupied, Moskowitz said he must wait an hour or more to see his client. Even when they can meet, they’re separated by thick glass that hampers their ability to communicate, he said.
Additionally, Merchant hasn’t been able to review discovery on his own. On the few occasions when he was allowed outside of his cell to go to the law library, the computer keyboard there was broken, which made it impossible for him to enter the password required to open the discovery, according to Moskowitz.
Along with being restricted from communicating with his own attorney, Merchant has been blocked from talking to anyone else in the outside world, including his family in Pakistan.
“After repeated protests, and with the assistance of AUSA Winik, Mr. Merchant was told that he would be allowed two fifteen-minute calls to his family per month. Unfortunately, while Mr. Merchant had one month in which he was allowed two calls, over the past several months, he has only received one call per month, with no explanation being provided as to why he is not getting the calls he is entitled to,” his lawyer said.
“Moreover, Mr. Merchant’s attempts to call his family in Pakistan, for some unknown reason, have been unsuccessful.”
Merchant has also allegedly been subject to extremely cold temperatures within his cell.
“As for Mr. Merchant’s clothing, he has not been permitted to purchase a sweatshirt or sweatpants from the commissary, nor has his family or his attorney been permitted to have such items sent to him directly from Amazon or another recognized retailer,” Moskowitz said.
“Mr. Merchant’s cell (and the attorney conference room on Unit 84) is very cold and he often comes to attorney-client meetings shivering from cold,” the lawyer said.
“On the one occasion when Mr. Merchant was brought to the courthouse to meet with me and review discovery, he was so cold that he wore my winter coat throughout the meeting so he could warm up,” he added.
The meals aren’t too good, either. According to Moskowitz, his client was first given a diet of Halal food, but it was making him ill. Merchant then requested, and with the assistance of government counsel, was given a vegetarian diet. However, the MDC has not allowed him to have salt or pepper to season his meals, and has not allowed him to purchase from the commissary any sauce or seasoning that would give his food some flavor, his lawyer said.
The restrictions on Merchant come even as the government has admitted there’s no evidence that he has any co-conspirators in the U.S. Indeed, Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said in a memo last month that “law enforcement has not identified any IRGC associates of Merchant operating in the United States who could continue to orchestrate violent acts.”
Moskowitz argued that Merchant’s conditions were designed to make him miserable, and have no relation to protecting the public safety.
“The fact that Mr. Merchant is subject to [special administrative measures] does not mean that he should have to eat bland food in a cold cell without proper clothing to keep himself warm,” his lawyer argued.
“Despite the serious nature of the charges against him and the Special Administrative Measures to which he is being subjected, Mr. Merchant is entitled to be treated humanely and the government is required to ensure that he can effectively exercise his constitutional rights to counsel and to prepare a defense.”
Neither the judge nor the DOJ responded to Moskowitz’s letter as of the publication of this article. Merchant has a status hearing set for Monday.
As Headline USA has detailed, the notion that Iran conspired to assassinate Trump is highly dubious. In the Merchant case, the two hitmen he attempted to hire were undercover FBI agents introduced to him by one of their informants. Merchant appears to have been an unwitting dupe in an FBI sting operation.
However, the evidence that would prove whether Merchant was a legitimate assassin or an FBI patsy may never see the light of day. Along with keeping him in solitary confinement, the DOJ said in a motion earlier this month that it intends to exercise Section 4 of the Classified Information Procedures Act, which allows the U.S. government to keep state secrets just that: secret—even if it negatively impacts the rights of a defendant.
The U.S. government has placed similarly restrictive conditions on another alleged would-be Trump assassin, Ryan Routh.
Routh’s attorneys have noted the difficulty they’ve had communicating with their client. It takes hours to drive to his jail cell, and federal prison officials have taken over an hour to bring Routh from his jail cell to the visitation area. Routh is also prohibited from holding video calls with his attorneys. And while they can email each other, the government is reading those messages.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
