September 11 suspect's wife loses compensation bid

LONDON - The wife of an Algerian pilot falsely accused of being involved in the 9/11 attacks, failed on Friday in her bid for compensation from London police.

Lotfi Raissi's wife, Sonia Raissi, 31, had sought damages of more than 150,000 pounds, claiming that she was unlawfully arrested and falsely imprisoned by police after the attacks.

She said she was targeted because her husband became the first person accused of participating in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Her husband was arrested by British authorities, who were acting on behalf of their US counterparts, 10 days after the attacks.

It was claimed he had trained the September 11 hijackers.

Lotfi Raissi was never charged after it was found there was no evidence he was involved.

More than five years later, the compensation campaign of his wife, a French-born dancer, came to an end when London's High Court ruled she was not entitled to compensation.

However Raissi's brother, Mohamed, won his separate bid for compensation.

A further hearing will now take place to determine how much the 35-year-old from Hounslow, West London, will get from his 150,000-pound claim.

The court heard that Mrs Raissi, of Chiswick, west London, was working at Heathrow as a customer service agent for Air France at the time she was arrested.

She was finally freed after five days in custody and was never charged.

Mr Justice McCombe ruled on Friday there had been sufficient suspicion by the police to justify an arrest.

"It must have been reasonable to suspect that if Lotfi was possibly involved, she too might be complicit in the offences," he said.

"She was far more close to the centre of events under investigation than simply a relative or domestic partner."

Mohamed Raissi was detained for more than 40 hours before also being released without charge.

The judge said that his case was quite different.

"He was simply thought to be the close brother of a major suspect and the two lived geographically fairly close to each other," the judge said.

"In my judgment those grounds were not sufficient to justify his arrest."

The judge said the police, who had denied the charges, could appeal the Mohamed Raissi decision.