Alleged ‘Trainer’ of Sept. 11 Attackers Is Granted Bail

The Algerian pilot whom investigators had named as the Sept. 11 skyjackers’ “lead trainer” when they jailed him here nearly five months ago was freed on bond Tuesday, after the U.S. government failed to produce any hard evidence linking him to the terrorist attacks.

Lotfi Raissi wept in open court, and his family applauded from a glass-walled gallery as British Judge Timothy Workman overruled prosecutors’ objections, set bail at about $15,000 and allowed Raissi and his wife to later walk hand in hand out of a maximum-security prison in southeastern London.

The judge ordered Raissi, who also faces two indictments on lesser charges by a federal grand jury in Arizona, to reappear next month for an extradition hearing.

But the decision to free a man once viewed as a key suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was a public blow to the Bush administration, which has led a worldwide campaign to round up Sept. 11 suspects as well as other possible terrorists.

Indeed, the case appeared emblematic of an investigation that has increasingly run into difficulties. Only one man, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been charged for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 plot. He was arrested for immigration violations in Minnesota in August and thus was already in custody when the attacks occurred.

None of the more than 1,200 people detained in the United States after the attacks has been charged with terrorism; 116 face unrelated criminal charges, according to Justice Department figures released in mid-December, while 460 are being held for immigration violations. The others have been released.

Unlike some of the U.S. cases, most of the overseas cases have escaped public scrutiny. CIA Director George J. Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that “nearly 1,000 Al Qaeda operatives” had been arrested in more than 60 countries, a figure far higher than previous estimates.

But a U.S. official familiar with the roundups said not all those arrested were Al Qaeda operatives. Moreover, the official said some had been released, suggesting insufficient evidence to support continued detention.

Officials in Washington acknowledged that they have not been able to develop concrete evidence tying Raissi to the skyjackers.

“If there were terrorism charges we could have brought against Mr. Raissi, we would have brought them,” said Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman. “That hasn’t happened yet.”

But Sierra said Raissi, who was arrested 10 days after the attacks, has not been ruled out as a suspect. And the spokesman sought to downplay the significance of the British judge’s ruling.

“The extradition request is still pending, and we’re still seeking to have him face charges in Arizona,” Sierra said.

Workman’s ruling came after a 35-minute hearing in which Raissi’s attorney assailed the FBI and U.S. prosecutors for “disgracefully” withholding evidence and ignoring witnesses’ testimony in the prolonged effort to extradite Raissi to the United States. The prosecutor representing the U.S. at the hearing denied the charge.

Throughout the 20 weeks Raissi was held in London’s Belmarsh Prison, defense attorney Hugo Keith argued, the FBI examined his life “from top to toe . . . but nothing whatsoever has been forthcoming.”

The FBI refused to discuss specific allegations leveled by Keith.

Prosecutor James Lewis, presenting the U.S. government’s case, offered no new evidence Tuesday to support terrorism charges.

Arguing against Raissi’s release, Lewis said “the fact that he is a suspect is a compelling reason to believe he will fail to appear” for the March 28 extradition hearing.

After 45 minutes of private deliberation, Workman said, “I’m satisfied there’s no likelihood of terrorism charges being proffered against Mr. Raissi in the near future.” He ordered Raissi to surrender his passport.

During the hearing, Keith tore into the allegations against Raissi, whose predawn Sept. 21 arrest along with his family at his suburban London apartment made headlines worldwide.

One FBI document, Keith said, attempted to link Raissi to Hani Hanjour, the Saudi Arabian suspected of flying a Boeing 757 into the Pentagon. It stated that Raissi and Hanjour had taken a training flight together at an Arizona flying school on March 8, 1999, along with an American instructor.

But Keith stated that Raissi’s defense team has since interviewed the American pilot, who said his logbooks showed that he and Raissi alone had flown together on March 9. Other records showed that Hanjour flew with another instructor the previous day.

Keith added that the American pilot had told the FBI the same thing but that U.S. authorities had not informed the British court. And Keith quoted from a Nov. 29 FBI affidavit by an agent he identified only as Plunkett that reported “no evidence to suggest that Mr. Raissi and Mr. Hanjour had ever trained together.”

Outside the courthouse, the Raissi family’s initial rejoicing quickly turned to angry rejoinder.

His wife, brother and mother, who had gathered before the hearing with signs declaring “Scapegoat” and “Stop Racism,” demanded that U.S. officials drop all charges and publicly apologize to the 27-year-old Algerian.

Declaring that “justice has been done,” his brother Mohamed said “the FBI said to the world that he [Raissi] was the biggest terrorist, and now they have to say to the world that this man is innocent.”

Raissi’s wife, Sonia, added: “They should drop the charges and say sorry to him. My message to the FBI is, ‘You arrested him for terrorism, so why do you want to extradite him for these ridiculous, minor charges?’ ”

Since Sept. 11, U.S. law enforcement officials have made prevention of another attack their top priority, paying less attention to evidence-gathering techniques often used to build a criminal case. John Martin, a former Justice Department official and authority on national security cases, said Raissi’s release raises doubts about that strategy.

“The aim in bringing criminal cases should be to make sure that the defendants aren’t turned loose on the street, and that means you’re going to have to have better evidence and cooperation between prosecutors in different countries,” Martin said.

“The question in this case is whether the evidence is lacking or whether the U.S. government is reluctant to share it with the Brits. I think it’s more likely that the evidence is lacking,” he said.

After his arrest here, Raissi was indicted by a federal grand jury in Phoenix on charges of lying on his application for a pilot’s license. He was indicted again in November on additional charges, although none specifically link him to terrorism.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix said Tuesday that Raissi’s release in London “really has no impact” on the local prosecution.

The first indictment alleges that Raissi, who is licensed in the United States to fly Boeing 737s, failed to tell a Federal Aviation Administration doctor that he had knee surgery for an old tennis injury. It also alleges that he did not disclose a 1993 conviction for stealing a briefcase at London’s Heathrow Airport.

Attorney Keith attacked those charges in court Tuesday. The FAA doctor who examined Raissi for his pilot’s license had examined him for an earlier license, Keith argued, and Raissi had disclosed his surgery the first time. The FBI was aware of that, Keith added, yet it failed to inform the British court. The theft charge, the attorney said, was filed in Britain, and FAA rules did not compel Raissi to report it.

The second indictment alleges that Raissi conspired to file a false application for political asylum on behalf of another Algerian, Redouane Dahmani, who is in custody in Arizona.

Raissi’s attorney also disputed that case Tuesday. He attacked the FBI’s handling of a diary found in the London apartment of a suspected senior Al Qaeda member known as Abu Doha, who also is in British custody and the subject of U.S. extradition efforts.

Prosecutors had asserted that the diary belonged to Abu Doha and suggested links to Raissi. But prosecutor Lewis conceded Tuesday that the diary bore none of Abu Doha’s fingerprints.

Abu Doha appeared before Judge Workman after the Raissi hearing. But Abu Doha, who was identified in testimony as a key figure in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, did not win bail.

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Fineman reported from London and Drogin and Lichtblau from Washington. Staff writer Rich Connell in Los Angeles contributed to this report.