NEW YORK
An Egyptian student detained after a pilot’s aviation radio was found in his hotel room following the Sept. 11 attacks should be allowed to sue an FBI agent over his imprisonment, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Abdallah Higazy, the son of an Egyptian diplomat, should be allowed to try to prove that the actions of an FBI agent, Michael Templeton, caused him to be unjustly criminally charged and imprisoned for 34 days.
Higazy claimed he was charged with making false statements after Templeton coerced him into changing his story several times by screaming at him, lying to him and threatening him.
The student became embroiled in the wide ranging probe into the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks after a worker at the Millennium Hilton Hotel overlooking the trade center site said that a handheld pilot radio was found in a safe in the room where Higazy had been staying on Sept. 11.
After leaving the hotel in a rush along with other guests on that day, he was summoned to return on Dec. 17, 2001, to collect his belongings. The FBI then began to question him about the pilot radio.
Higazy was charged with making false statements to investigators when he told them several different stories about how the radio had come to be in his room. Prosecutors said the radio was found in the safe, on top of a Quran and his passport.
