9/11 Lies Ruin Life of Pilot

Items like this should really call into question the charges against many still detained at Guantanamo. From the London Times:

Six years of fighting for justice left Lotfi Raissi an emotional and physical wreck and his marriage close to ruin. But yesterday, the Algerian pilot falsely accused of training the September 11 terrorists heard, finally, that he was “completely exonerated” of any part in the attacks on the twin towers.

As Mr Raissi pored over the Court of Appeal’s densely worded judgment, the lengths to which the authorities had bent the rules to detain him in the febrile days after September 11 became clear.

Three of Britain’s most senior judges condemned the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service for abusing the court process, presenting false allegations and not disclosing evidence.

But it was not until page 44, paragraph 154, line 17 that Mr Raissi’s eyes settled upon the words he had been praying for. The judges ruled that the charge that he was a terrorist and had trained the September 11 hijackers was one of which he should be “completely exonerated”. His only “crime” was to learn his skills at the same Florida flying school as two of the hijackers.

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In Phoneix, Arizona, they came across a flight school called Sawyer Aviation where Hani Hanjour — who crashed an airliner into the Pentagon — had trained. The school was popular with Middle Eastern trainees and one of those at Sawyer at the same time as Hanjour was Mr Raissi.

He had, checks quickly established, left the US and was now living in Britain. On September 17, a letter from the legal attaché at the US Embassy in London was delivered to Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch.

“The FBI request that this matter be handled as expeditiously and discreetly as possible,” the letter said. The words “expeditiously” and “discreetly” were typed in bold.

Ten days later Scotland Yard executed its response to the American request. Armed officers smashed down the door of Mr Raissi’s flat in Colnbrook, Berkshire, not far from Heathrow, and arrested him and his wife at gunpoint. The media hailed the arrest in Britain of the first suspects in the global hunt for the men who planned the worst terrorist attacks ever seen. An extradition warrant was issued for Mr Raissi on a “holding charge” that he had failed to disclose a theft conviction on his US immigration application. But in the courts, British lawyers representing the US Government made much more serious allegations.

Mr Raissi, they said, was the “lead instructor” for the hijackers. The courts were told there was evidence that he falsified flight logs to hide the fact he trained Hanjour. Videotape had been found of Hanjour and Mr Raissi together. A notebook said to belong to Abu Doha, a major terrorist suspect, that had been found in London contained Mr Raissi’s phone number.

One by one, over the course of ten court hearings, Mr Raissi’s solicitor proved that the allegations and the evidence to support them were false, if not fabricated.

False? Fabricated? Are they referring to the Bush Administration? Nah!

The long article is HERE.

And so it goes.

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