The Freedom Tower

The Associated Press reports that “Ahmad Mohammed Ajaj, who remains in extreme isolation in the nation’s most secure prison, filed a lawsuit last year in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against more than a dozen judges, federal court employees, Bureau of Prisons officials and his former defense lawyer Maranda Fritz.

Fifteen years after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Palestinian was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison in the attack. In court papers revealed this week, he now claims that a vengeful U.S. government has blocked him from appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said they failed to notify him of appeals court rulings and blocked his access to what he would need for a Supreme Court appeal of his conviction on conspiracy charges in the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000 others.

In court documents filed last week, government lawyers said Ajaj has no right to bring the claims against court personnel.

Fritz, the defense lawyer, said in an interview that she worked on the case for seven years, collected evidence from around the globe and has not worked on the case in five or six years.

“I was terribly disappointed when the Supreme Court would not accept the case,” she said. “I believe the results were wrong. I argued it in every way that I knew how. I think the issues were substantial and novel enough.”

In his lawsuit, Ajaj claimed the U.S. judicial system denied him access to the courts in retaliation against him and Arab and Muslim prisoners for the “9-11-2001 tragedy” and for his complaints about the government’s conduct.

The government said the defendants were protected from Ajaj’s claims by “absolute immunity,” provided by law for actions undertaken in their official capacity.”