http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/politics/19witness.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=Abdullah al Kidd was on his way to Saudi Arabia to work on his doctorate in Islamic studies in March 2003 when he was arrested as a material witness in a terrorism investigation. An F.B.I. agent marched him across Dulles Airport in Washington in handcuffs.
"It was the most horrible, disgraceful, degrading moment in my life," said Mr. Kidd, an American citizen who was known as Lavoni T. Kidd when he led his college football team, the Vandals of the University of Idaho, in rushing in 1995.
The two weeks that followed his arrest, he said, were a terrifying and humiliating ordeal.
"I was made to sit in a small cell for hours and hours and hours buck naked," he said. "I was treated worse than murderers."
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Mr. Kidd, who described himself as "anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism," was never charged with a crime and never asked to testify as a witness. In June, 16 months after his arrest, the court said he was free to resume his life.