Lotfi Raissi, the Algerian wrongly accused of training pilots involved in the 9\/11 terrorist attacks in New York, should be allowed to claim compensation, the Court of Appeal ruled.<\/p>\n
Mr Raissi, a pilot, was arrested at his home under the Terrorism Act in September 2001, 10 days after the World Trade Centre atrocity.<\/p>\n
He was released after seven days but re-arrested under an extradition warrant issued at the request of the United States government.<\/p>\n
He remained in jail for four-and-a-half months, when he was granted bail despite objections from the Crown Prosecution Service which was representing the US. Raissi, 33, was finally released after no evidence was put before a court to support the terrorism allegations.<\/p>\n
Lord Justice Hooper, giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal, said: “The public labelling of the appellant as a terrorist by the authorities in this country, and particularly by the CPS, over a period of many months has had and continues to have, so it is said, a devastating effect on his life and on his health. He considers that, unless he receives a public acknowledgement that he is not a terrorist, he will be unable to get his life back together again.”<\/p>\n
Raissi applied for compensation in March 2004 under a scheme operated by the Home Office for people who had lost their liberty because of a miscarriage of justice. His application was rejected by the Home Secretary and Raissi took his case to a judicial review at the High Court where he was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
Lord Justice Hooper said: “We have allowed his appeal ordering that the appellant’s application for compensation be referred back to the Home Secretary for reconsideration in the light of this judgment.”<\/p>\n
The judge said the appeal court, which also included the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, and Lady Justice Smith, considered that there was a “considerable body of evidence” to suggest that the police and the CPS were responsible for what the scheme describes as “serious defaults”.<\/p>\n
Speaking outside court Mr Raissi said: “I wept with relief when I heard the judgment. I have always said that I believed in British justice and I finally got it today. Surely I can expect to hear from the Home Secretary with the long-awaited apology very soon.”<\/p>\n
Commenting on the ruling, the Ministry of Justice said: “We are considering the implications and whether or not to appeal.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Copyright Press Association Ltd 2008, All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n
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Lotfi Raissi, the Algerian wrongly accused of training pilots involved in the 9\/11 terrorist attacks in New York, should be allowed to claim compensation, the Court of Appeal ruled. Mr Raissi, a pilot, was arrested at his home under the Terrorism Act in September 2001, 10 days after the World Trade Centre atrocity. He was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20,18],"tags":[92],"class_list":{"0":"post-2469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-911-truth","7":"category-general","8":"category-latest-news","9":"tag-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}