Alien Indicted for Perjury in
Genital Mutilation Claim

he immigrant who gained national attention by applying for asylum with the claim that she faced genital mutilation if returned to her native Ghana, was charged with four counts of perjury and one count of passport fraud.

Regina Norman Danson, 33, who won political asylum in the U.S. and support from left-wingers and feminists, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A Brooklyn grand jury charged that Danson lied to a U.S. immigration judge in 1997, telling him that her name was "Adelaide Abankwah," and that Ghanian tradition required her to replace her dead mother as "Queen Mother" of her village, necessitating clitoral circumcision.

She made the claims in an effort to stop the Immigration and Naturalization Service from deporting her for using a doctored passport to enter the U.S.

The judge denied her request for political asylum. But that decision was overruled in 1999 by a federal appeals court after extensive publicity about her case and a public outcry from left-wingers, women's groups, and Sen. Clinton and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY.

Danson was granted political asylum, even though an investigation by the INS charged she had invented the story of her mother's death and status as a tribal queen, and was using the name of another woman.

"This indictment demonstrates that the government will not tolerate cynical abuse of an asylum system designed to protect real victims of human rights violations," said U.S. Attorney James Comey.

The INS recommended that Danson be prosecuted three years ago, but the indictment came on the last day she could have been charged under a statute of limitations. Danson is free on $200,000 bail.