Ex-FBI agent files bias lawsuit

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Ex-FBI agent files bias lawsuit


By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer

August 19, 2004, 4:30 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- The FBI's legal attache to seven countries including Saudi Arabia during and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sued the Department of Justice on Thursday, saying the FBI all but sabotaged his efforts in a petty campaign to discredit him.

The agent, Wilfred Samuel Rattigan, said in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the FBI violated his constitutional and civil rights because of his race, national origin and religious beliefs. He is seeking unspecified damages.

He accused the FBI of repeatedly undermining his work, "even at the expense of compromising or delaying important investigations, including the 9/11 investigation."

Rattigan claimed his superiors did not want "a black man and a naturalized citizen of Jamaican descent to succeed in the bureau," particularly since he was working on such an important case.

"This motivation reflects the ongoing legacy of racial discrimination that has roiled the bureau in the past 10 to 15 years," the lawsuit said.

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