JURIST - Paper Chase: UK Law Lords bar Home Office appeal in case of pilot wrongly detained after 9/11

[JURIST] The Law Lords, the judicial members of UK House of Lords, Wednesday denied the Home Office [official website] the right to appeal a lower court ruling which granted government compensation to an Algerian-born pilot wrongly detained after the September 11 attacks [JURIST news archive]. In February, the Court of Appeal ruled [text] that Lotfi Raissi [BBC profile] was entitled to payment because of serious flaws in the decision to detain him under a US extradition warrant for nearly five months. US prosecutors alleged that Raissi offered pilot training to the hijackers, but lacking evidence, sought his extradition on the grounds that Raissi had falsified his pilot's license application. The extradition request was rejected [BBC report] by a UK judge for lack of evidence linking Raissi to terrorism.

Raissi was arrested on September 21, 2001 and was granted conditional bail [BBC report] on February 12, 2002. He sought compensation [BBC report] from the UK government under a program approved by the UK Home Office. BBC News has more.

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