Lawyer in the news
Who? Jules Carey, 39-year-old head of the civil liberties and police action department at the London office of Tuckers.
Why is he in the news? Represented Lotfi Raissi, the Algerian pilot wrongly accused of training pilots involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, who has won the right to renew his claim for compensation against the government. Mr Raissi was detained at Belmarsh prison for almost five months, before a judge dismissed the case and concluded there was no evidence to support the allegation that he was involved in terrorism. In 2004 Mr Raissi asked the Home Secretary for an ex gratia payment to compensate him for the ‘serious defaults’ of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the police, but this was refused. The High Court upheld this refusal in 2007, but last week the Court of Appeal allowed his judicial review and ordered the Home Secretary to reconsider his application. Lord Hooper said: ‘There is a considerable body of evidence to suggest that the police and the CPS were responsible for serious defaults.’ A CPS spokesman said it would be studying the issues raised but noted that the judgment ‘reaches no firm conclusion’ regarding the CPS.
Background: Philosophy degree at City University, followed by the common professional examination and Law Society Finals at London’s College of Law. He trained ‘on the mean streets of Brixton’ and qualified in 1996 before joining Tuckers in 2001 where he established his current department.
Route to the case: The firm represented Mr Raissi in defending the US extradition request.
Thoughts on the case: ‘This is a genuine epic. A completely innocent man, who happened to be a commercial airline pilot from Algeria, found himself wrongly accused of being the chief instructor and mastermind of the 9/11 terror atrocity.
‘It is a testimony to Mr Raissi’s strength of character that, despite losing everything, he has never been willing to settle for anything less than complete exoneration, an apology and restitution. The judgment was remarkable in its breadth and strength of criticism. The conduct of the Home Secretary and CPS was described as an abuse of process and it was held that there was a considerable body of evidence to suggest that the police were responsible for ‘serious defaults’. Today’s judgment should not only cause the Home ?Secretary to review the use of provisional extradition warrants, but it should also cause the police and the CPS to fundamentally overhaul their systems and procedures to avoid such a serious miscarriage of justice happening again.’
Dealing with the media: ‘Fortunately, the vilification and hostility directed against Mr Raissi by the media had mainly subsided by the time I took on the case. The media have on the whole been pretty supportive, but you can’t stop the usual suspects banging on about taxpayers’ money, claimants and their lawyers.’
Catherine Baksi
