NEW YORK, Sept. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Days after the New York city was held in contempt for illegally detaining hundreds of convention protesters, the city's police department on Saturday tried to shift the blame to the state, claiming the state's fingerprint computer caused the problems.

    But both the state Office of Criminal Justice, which controls that computer, and sources in the court system denied any such fingerprint delays on Friday.

    Hundreds of protesters were detained without arraignment for more than a day and, in some cases, up to 66 hours, following mass arrests that also ensnared bystanders.

    It was only after a judge's order that hundreds of people were released Thursday night, some of them apparently with no formal charges. The city faces thousands of dollars in possible fines.

    A police official said that the delays were caused by the state fingerprint-matching computer, saying the police were ready, but the state court system could not process the large number of protesters' prints.

    Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the city's handling of the arrests in a news conference Friday, denying allegations from civil rights attorneys that police had intentionally held protesters in jail until the end of the Republican National Convention.

    Police used large nets and metal gates to restrain protesters, mostly those operating without permits, then placed many of them in wire pens at a Pier 57 garage. Many complained that they were forced to sit on a grimy floor with oil runoff from buses.

    Bloomberg also acknowledged Friday that some of the 1,800 people arrested during the week were not involved in protests, butjust happened to be on the street when the arrests occurred.

    But Court spokesman David Bookstaver said the courts put extra judges on duty to handle any large influx of convention protesters.

    "We doubled our arraignment capacity. We added another two judges. And we took the extraordinary step of keeping a judge working through the night two nights in a row," Bookstaver said. "We were ready willing and able."

    Bloomberg said that the number of arrests during the convention far exceeded a normal day in Manhattan when about 300 people are nabbed.

    But the state Division of Criminal Justice Services said the agency had turned around fingerprint checks within 32 minutes thisweek, one minute shorter than usual, even though its link to an FBI computer was down for awhile.

    "At no point in time was it expressed to us that there was any concern," said Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for the division.

    The Legal Aid Society's Michelle Maxian suggested the city had a clear agenda to delay the release of protesters until after President George W. Bush left the city. Enditem