From
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,1-206372,00.htmlPilot bailed after US terror charge failure
by adam fresco
Lofti Raissi, accused by America of being the key flight instructor of four of the September 11 hijackers, was granted bail today after the US Government failed to bring terrorist charges against him.
Algerian-born Mr Raissi, 27, has been held at top security Belmarsh prison for five months on charges that he lied on a form for a pilot’s licence by failing to declare his knee surgery and a conviction for theft when he was 17.
Today, as armed police patrolled around Belmarsh Magistrates court, East London, both inside and out, District Judge Timothy Workman said that there was “no likelihood of terrorist charges being preferred against Mr Raissi in the near future”.
Mr Raissi’s French wife Sonia, speaking after the Judge’s decision, said that she believed justice had been done. She said: “From the beginning we said Lotfi has nothing to do with all this. We’ve said it again and again but at last, justice has been done.
“We’ve been waiting five months and my message to the FBI is ‘you arrested him for terrorism so why do you want to extradite him for these ridiculous, minor charges?’.
On his first appearance in court last September the US Government claimed that these were just holding charges and he would be charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the terrorist attacks and could face the death penalty.
But on each occasion that Mr Raissi has appeared in court while still in custody the US authorities have failed to come up with any hard evidence that he instructed the hijackers, including the suspected ring leader, Mohammad Atta, as they alleged.
At a previous hearing, the judge warned that if the US was “unable to give the assurances that further charges of terrorist offences are to be offered, I have to assume that they won’t be.” He also said that the evidence against the pilot, from Colnbrook, Berkshire, is a “tenuous connection” to the attacks on September 11.
The judge said today: “I am also satisfied that the links that the Government had previously put before this court which was thought to connect the defendant to others in the terrorist organisation can no longer be substantiated.
“I am therefore no longer regarding the charges currently before me as specimen or holding charges and I have therefore examined the circumstances to see whether bail should be granted on those charges. I am satisfied that this is a case where conditional bail can now be granted.”
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Bolding of text is mine.
This is exacly what i'm worried about when it comes to the "treatment" of anyone suspected of terrorism, and recent changes of fed laws to give DOJ and FBI/CIA more freedom to abuse individuals, without having to present the evidence.
