Bid to appeal pilot payout ruling

The Government is to appeal against a court ruling which cleared the way for an Algerian pilot wrongly accused of training the September 11 hijackers to claim compensation.

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal said Lotfi Raissi had been subject to an "abuse of process" and overturned a previous decision. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said ministers would appeal against the ruling.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the appeal was based on a point of law and sought to "settle the matter" after different rulings from the High Court and Court of Appeal. Ministers were seeking to establish the "boundaries" of Government compensation, she said.

"We are appealing on a point of law/principle about boundaries of the State compensation scheme - we need to clarify how far Government compensation goes (eg Does the State have to pay compensation every time the police pull someone in for questioning? Should individuals simply sue whoever has wronged them - the police or CPS?).

"There were different judgments in the High Court and the Court of Appeal. We need to settle the matter."

The judgment was highly critical of the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It said the 33-year-old from Chiswick, west London had been subjected to an "abuse of process".

Police and the CPS used extradition proceedings to circumvent laws which prevented suspects being kept in custody longer than seven days, judges said.

Mr Raissi was arrested at his home near Heathrow airport 10 days after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. He was imprisoned at Belmarsh high security jail for four and a half months, but was released after no evidence was put before a court to support the terrorism allegations.

The Home Secretary rejected Mr Raissi's application for compensation - a decision which was upheld on appeal. The High Court said Mr Raissi had been held in extradition proceedings which were not "in the domestic criminal process" and therefore did not fall within the compensation scheme. But the Court of Appeal reversed that ruling and ordered the Home Office to look again at his claim. It said minor charges unconnected with terrorism were used to mount an extradition process with an "ulterior purpose".

Mr Raissi was qualified to fly Boeing 737 jets and was 27 at the time of his arrest, so compensation based on lost earnings for the rest of his career alone could run to between £2 million and £3 million.