... and eating his couscous, in what they describe as a "major setback to U.S. efforts to round up the perpetrators." Should we apologize?

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Terror Suspect Wins Bail in British Court
Tue Feb 12,10:55 AM ET
By Rachel Sanderson

LONDON (Reuters) - An Algerian-born pilot accused of training the Sept. 11 hijackers was freed on bail Tuesday after a British magistrate said his alleged links with terrorist groups "could no longer be substantiated."

The high-security Belmarsh court in London ordered Lotfi Raissi to post $14,280 bail and live at an address specified to the court. He must also surrender his passport and not apply for international travel documents.

Outside the court, his ecstatic French wife Sonia told reporters: "Justice has been done today. It took a long time, but at least now justice has been done. The FBI (news - web sites) should say sorry."

"We are very happy. We will celebrate with Algerian couscous," another family member said.

Magistrate Timothy Workman said last month that the U.S. authorities, who are seeking Raissi's extradition, must either bring terror charges against him soon, or proceed with a relatively minor aviation offence, the only one with which he is formally charged.

Workman told the court Tuesday the U.S. government's arguments that Raissi had terrorist links were no longer credible.

"The links can no longer be substantiated with other terrorist organizations," he said in setting the bail terms.

Raissi, who has been held since September, is due to appear before magistrates again on March 28 in connection with charges relating to false statements he is accused of making when applying for a pilot's license.

A U.S. embassy spokesman denied reports Washington had dropped its extradition request in the wake of the ruling and said Raissi remained a terror suspect.

"He is still the subject of a continuing terrorism investigation. The U.S. has not dropped its extradition request relating to the aviation charges," the spokesman said.

Twenty of Raissi's family and friends, crammed into the special court's public gallery, erupted in cheers when the decision was read out.

Raissi, dressed in a blue shirt with dark blue tie and a somber gray suit and sitting between four burly security guards, quietly placed his head in his hands.

There were jubilant scenes outside the austere, gray courthouse in east London as Raissi, looking shell-shocked, left in a waiting car.

His defense lawyer, Hugo Keith, criticized the United States for apparently changing the three ways in which it had tried to link Raissi to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), prime suspect behind the New York and Washington attacks, during his extradition hearings.

"The position of the U.S. government is that they don't know and don't care about Mr. Raissi," Keith told the court. "The three main links have not only altered over time but have no foundation."

Somewhere in a lonely hotel room
There's a guy starting to realize
That eternal fate has turned his back on him...



It's 2 A.M. the fear has gone
I'm sitting here waiting the gun still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of taking chances


Yeah there's a storm on the loose
Sirens in my head
Wrapped up in silence all circuits are dead
Cannot decode my whole life spins into a frenzy...


Help I'm stepping into the twilight zone
Place is a madhouse feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go now that I've gone too far
Help I'm stepping into the twilight zone
Place is a madhouse feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go now that I've gone too far
So you'll come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
So you'll come to know
When the bullet hits the bone


I'm falling down a spiral--destination unknown
Double crossed messenger--all alone
Can't get no connection, can't get through--where are you


Well the night weighs heavy on his guilty mind
This far from the border line
When the hitman comes he knows damn well
he has been cheated...

And he says
So you'll come to know
When the bullet hits the bone


by Golden Earring (Composed by George Kooymans)