UK justice sets 28-day deadline for Jack Straw to compensate Lotfi Raissi

The UK government has given Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, a 28-day deadline to decide whether to compensate Algerian pilot Lotfi Raissi , who was wrongly accused of training the 9/11 hijackers.

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• The Court of Appeal criticised the “extraordinary delay” by the Ministry of Justice in responding to its February 2008 order to consider Lotfi Raissi the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
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• Lotfi Raissi, 35, was arrested under an extradition warrant issued at the request of the United States government. He remained in in Belmarsh high-security jail for five months.
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• He said that his public labelling as a terrorist has had “a devastating effect on his life and on his health.”
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• In February 2008 – four years after he first applied for miscarriage of justice compensation – the Court of Appeal ruled in his favour and referred his application back for reconsideration.
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• Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, sitting in the Court of Appeal with Lady Justice Smith and Lord Justice Hooper, said there had been an “extraordinary delay” in resolving the matter.
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• Mr Raissi’s counsel, Edward Fitzgerald QC, had told the judges that “enough was enough” and the time had come for a decision. He said that no further evidence had emerged against Mr Raissi and any suggestion otherwise was “smear and innuendo”.