By Howard Koplowitz
Adem Carroll said 16-year-old Tashnuba Hayder accepted the decision because it would have taken months to fight the charges. He said her family was “too shocked” that she was in a detention center in Berks County, Pa. The court order, Carroll said, recognized that Hayder was not a threat to national security. “I think we lost somebody who would be a good part of society,” Carroll said of Hayder, saying any hope for her return to the U.S. appears unlikely. “Her identity is here. It's disturbing that human rights aren't for everyone,” he said. In an exclusive interview in Bangladesh, Hayder told The New York Times that the accusations were false. She said that in the first of many interviews with government agents, investigators discovered that she frequented an Internet chat room where she took notes on sermons by a charismatic London-based Islamic cleric who encouraged suicide bombings. Hayder, who was born in Bangladesh and arrived in the United States at 5, said her interest in the cleric was a “casual thing” that lasted for a few minutes at a time. The newspaper, citing The Times of London, said a female listener of the broadcast asked the cleric if women were allowed to participate in suicide bombings and the cleric said he found no problem with it.FBI agents first visited Hayder's home March 4, posing as youth counselors responding to a police complaint filed by her father five months earlier after he learned his daughter agreed to meet a Muslim man from Michigan, The Times reported.She told the paper that the agents were particularly interested in a diagram included in an essay she wrote about why religions oppose suicide for a class she joined to prepare for exams for home-schooled girls. Hayder said the agents used that diagram to ask her if she was interested in suicide and if she was a loner who liked to sit in her room.The teenager also said the government treated her like a criminal simply for exercising freedoms of speech and religion that she learned in America. Hayder said she felt she was singled out by federal agents because she was not a citizen, which allowed the government to use immigration laws to bypass juvenile and criminal proceedings. Although the teenager is a devout Muslim, Carroll said she will not be able to attend mosques in Bangladesh because of the country's practices toward women.”I wish her the best in adapting and making the best of it,” he said.Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 173
