Mon, 09 Oct 2006

A pawn in their propaganda machine - unfounded claims

From The Times:
[...] Mr Raissi, 32, an Algerian pilot, was the first person to be arrested in connection with 9/11 when armed police raided his West London home at 3am on September 21, 2001. He was held for five months in Belmarsh high-security prison before a judge declared that there was no evidence that he was involved in terrorism.

[...] The alleged terrorist link was one of a number of false allegations made against Mr Raissi. Prosecutors claimed in court that he was the “lead instructor” for the main hijackers who crashed aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The FBI was said to have video material showing him in the company of Hani Hanjour, one of the hijack pilots.

However, all the evidence was shown to be unsubstantiated and, in February 2002, District Judge Timothy Workman ordered Mr Raissi's release.

[...] Mr Raissi said: “My life has been ruined. I lost my freedom, my reputation and my career. The courts have said I am innocent – why does the Home Secretary not accept this?” Jules Carey, Mr Raissi's solicitor, said the Home Secretary's decision (to refuse compensation) was “morally wrong. We hope to establish that his decision is also legally wrong.”


I updated this article with a link to this news story. It is very slowly sinking in that I should consider myself extremely lucky not to have been either shot or locked up. I still find it difficult to accept that this is what one can expect in any 'Western democracy', even more so in a country often called the the mother of all democracies. How many more such cases before Justice is restored?

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