An Algerian pilot arrested in London was "a lead instructor" of the hijackers who crashed an airliner into the Pentagon, a prosecutor acting on a US warrant said Friday.
Lotfi Raissi, 27, made several trips to the US this summer, and flew with one of the suspected hijackers on June 23 from Las Vegas to Arizona, prosecuting attorney Arvinda Sambir said.
"He was a lead instructor of four of the pilots that were responsible for the hijackings," Sambir said in Bow Street Magistrates Court in central London. "The one that we are concerned about is the one that went into the Pentagon."
Raissi was arrested Friday, after a week in custody, under a warrant from a federal court in Arizona alleging that he gave false information on a Federal Aviation Administration application for a pilot's license. He has not been formally charged with any offense.
Further allegations were expected, Sambir said. "It is no secret that conspiracy to murder is being looked at."
Richard Egan, Raissi's defense lawyer, said his client rejected the allegations.
"He adamantly denies any involvement in the recent appalling tragedies," Egan said outside the court.
Raissi remained in custody pending a further hearing on Oct. 5. US authorities have 60 days to file an extradition request, the Home Office said.
Since the terrorist strikes in Washington and New York City on Sept. 11, 20 people have been arrested in a European sweep for suspected confederates of Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the attacks.
Raissi was one of four people detained by British police on Sept. 21. Three were released without charge.
They were identified in news reports as Raissi's 25-year-old wife, Sonia; his 29-year-old brother, Mohamed, and Abu Imard, 44. Imard, who was arrested in Birmingham, was released Friday evening.
Raissi started training for a US commercial pilot's license in 1997, Sambir said. It was unclear where Raissi allegedly attended flight school with the hijackers -- Sambir said he had been at several flight schools, including one in Arizona.
Former employees of the Sawyer School of Aviation in Phoenix said they remembered Raissi using the school's flight simulator at least as recently as 1999 to instruct others.
He often came in late at night with a group of men who huddled around the simulator with him, the employees said.
The subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in Kumamoto, Japan, turned a profit in the first quarter of this year, marking the first time the first fab of the unit has become profitable since mass production started at the end of 2024. According to the contract chipmaker’s financial statement released on Friday, Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc (JASM), a joint venture running the fab in Kumamoto, posted NT$951 million (US$30.19 million) in profit in the January-to-March period, compared with a loss of NT$1.39 billion in the previous quarter, and a loss of NT$3.25 billion in the first quarter of
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
RESOLUTE BACKING: Two Republican senators are planning to introduce legislation that would impose immediate sanctions on China if it attempts to invade Taiwan US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday reaffirmed US congressional support for Taiwan, saying the US and “all freedom-loving people” have a stake in preventing China from seizing Taiwan by force. Johnson made the remarks in an interview with Fox News Sunday on US President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last week. In an interview that aired on Friday on Fox News, just as Trump wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China, he said he has yet to green-light a new US$14 billion arms package to Taiwan and that it “depends on China.” “It’s a very good
US President Donald Trump yesterday said he would speak to President William Lai (賴清德) as his administration considers whether to move ahead with a US$14 billion weapons sale to Taiwan — a potential arms deal that has drawn criticism from China. “Well, I’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody,” Trump told reporters yesterday when asked if he had any plans to call his counterpart, although he did not offer a time frame for when such a conversation could take place. Trump previously said he would speak to the person “that’s running Taiwan,” without specifying who he meant. “We have that situation very
RSS