Loan Adviser

Great Britain will compensate a former suspect in attacks on U.S.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain agreed Friday to pay compensation to an Algerian pilot who was imprisoned for five months after being wrongly accused of involvement in the attacks of Septem1000ber 11, 2001.

Lotfi Raissi was arrested

10 days after the attacks on New York and Washington, threatened with extradition to the United States and placed in a maximum security prison because U.S. law enforcement believed he was involved in the plot by Al Qaeda.

But the allegations proved false and was later released. Raissi has tried to clear his name ever since, claiming that all the airlines excluded from possible employment and that his life was ruined.

“This is one of the best days of my life. Now I am completely exonerated by the Ministry of Justice and I am delighted, “said Raissi told the BBC.

” My life was destroyed, my career was destroyed. It has been hell for me over the past nine years. I suffered discrimination, racism suffered, my life was not safe, “he said.

Camus resident in Britain attended a flight school in Arizona and U.S. officials believed was related to the hijacker who crashed a plane into the Pentagon.

A British court later rejected the accusations and said the allegations were not confirmed, so that the pilot began to fight for compensation.

The request was first rejected by the British Government in l 2004, but four years later the Court of Appeals ordered the ministers to reconsider saying that the way they were conducted the extradition process and the rejection of the supposed release “an abuse of the process.”

Last month, the court gave the government 28 days to decide what actions they would take and a spokesman Ministry of Justice confirmed that now receive compensation.

An independent assessor will consider how much you should pay, but Raissi said the money was not important.

“I was fighting for justice. What I want in the end is an apology,” he said, adding that he hoped to be allowed to fly again.

(Translated by Raquel Castillo Editors” de Madrid, editing by Juan Jose Lagorio Spanish)