Italy pays damages to Tunisian wrongly held as terrorism suspect

Source: International Herald Tribune

Italy pays damages to Tunisian wrongly held as terrorism suspect
By Elisabetta Povoledo
Published: March 19, 2007

ROME: Less than six months after the attacks on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001, the Italian police arrested 15 immigrants in connection with a murky plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Rome with chemical agents. Two years later the case collapsed in court.

Now one of the 15 has been awarded €100,000, or $133,000, for wrongful detention. He is the first person to be compensated for being falsely arrested under an anti-terrorism law that was introduced soon after the attacks.

An appeals court in Rome awarded the payment in February to the immigrant, Abdelmoname Ben Khalifa Mansour, a Tunisian who was arrested here in March 2002 on charges of belonging to a group with links to Al Qaeda.
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"You have to look at the investigation as something that was meant to solidify the axis between Bush and Berlusconi, showing America that we were faithful allies and ready to protect everyone from everything," she said in a telephone interview, referring to Silvio Berlusconi, who was prime minister then.
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Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/19/news/italy.php