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Algerian Mother Denounces FBI Harassment of Nephew
LA-PLAINE-SAINT-DENIS, France, Jan. 29 (News Agencies) - Algerian mother-of-two Djoudja Bouriche has accused the FBI of organizing the unjustified detention of her nephew, Lotfi Raissi, over the September 11 terrorist attacks, news agencies reported.
Sitting in her apartment in a suburb north of Paris, surrounded by files and family photos, she accused the FBI of pressurizing British authorities into detaining 27-year-old Raissi, a pilot who allegedly trained one of the suicide pilots, Hanni Hanjour, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Hanjour crashed a hijacked Boeing airliner into the Pentagon building near Washington on September 11.
Raissi was arrested September 21 in the west London home he shared with his French wife Sonai.
The United States is seeking his extradition and British courts will decide next month whether or not to free him on bail.
"My nephew is really a scapegoat," said a tearful Bouriche, who emigrated to France from Algeria ten years ago. "He has nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, and still less Islamism. The FBI has got it in for him and has sifted right through his life but there is no proof," she sobbed.
Raissi was remanded in custody December 14, but Bouriche said the U.S. administration had brought no concrete proof against him.
She said her nephew was arrested in the early hours of the morning, along with his wife who spent five days in detention. The wife was subsequently sacked from her job with Air France, said AFP.
"He has been jailed because he gave lessons in aviation in Phoenix, Arizona and he is being accused of training Hanni Hanjour," she said.
"We have raised 15,250 euros (13,000 dollars) for his release on bail and we hope the British courts will do just that next February 12," she added.
Soon after his arrest, British newspapers claimed that Raissi was the No. 1 suspect in the hunt for those who trained the four suicide pilots who crashed U.S. airliners on September 11.
Bouriche said that the most upsetting was for her family to be accused of terrorism. "In fact we are anti-terrorist, especially when you see what we have been through in Algeria," she said.
U.S. authorities allege Raissi obtained his pilot's license without revealing that he had a conviction for theft in Britain in 1993 or that he had had an operation on his knee - two things which would have prevented him from obtaining the pilot's license.
"They cannot extradite Lotfi on the strength of a knee operation. They have no more proof now than they had at the start," Bouriche lamented.
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