| For Immediate Release Mar 26, 2003 |
Contact: Press Office 202-646-5188 |
Appellate Court Doesn’t Dismiss Dalrymple Case (Miami, FL) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, announced that a decision by the Atlanta-based appellate court for the Eleventh Circuit, allows the Gonzalez family to proceed in its lawsuit against Janet Reno and other Clinton Administration officials for the violent raid in which Elian Gonzalez was taken from their Little Havana home. In June, 2001 the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that Janet Reno and other Clinton Administration officials can be held personally responsible for the April 22, 2000 raid in which armed federal law enforcement agents brutally beat and gassed innocent bystanders before ramming down the door of the Gonzalez home and taking a horrified young Elian at gunpoint. Reno and the others appealed the federal court’s decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that they are immune government officials and cannot be held personally responsible. The appellate court’s ruling states that the Gonzalez’s complaint, filed by their former attorney, lacks specific facts to hold Reno and the others liable. However, Judicial Watch will seek to amend the complaint and include the required facts which will allow them to finally have their day in court against Janet Reno. “Janet Reno personally ordered armed agents in combat fatigues to illegally penetrate the Gonzalez residence in the middle of the night in order to return an innocent young boy to a terrorist dictator and we will see to it that she is punished for that.” said Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel. | |