Source: USA Today
Wire Service: AP
TAMPA (AP) -- The Homeland Security Department sent a letter apologizing to a Muslim woman who was detained at the Tampa airport and strip searched at a county jail.
Safana Jawad, 45, a Spanish citizen who was born in Iraq, was detained on April 11 because of a suspected tie to a suspicious person, authorities said. She was held for two days before being deported to England.
Jawad filed a complaint, and the agency apologized in a letter dated Dec. 8.
"On behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, I offer you my sincere apology for having to undergo a strip search," wrote Timothy Keefer, acting chief counsel for the department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
The agency declined to release the name of the suspicious person in the case.