Man in al-Qa'ida arrest wins £20,000 payout

A student who was wrongfully arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist after downloading an edited copy of The al-Qa'ida Training Manual for his PhD course, has been paid £20,000 in compensation by police.

Rizwaan Sabir, 26, who is now researching domestic UK counter-terrorism policy at the University of Strathclyde, was held for seven days in 2008 by Nottinghamshire Police after downloading the document, which is available on Amazon, from a US government website while studying at the University of Nottingham.

"For more than three years, I have been fighting to clear my name and establish that the police were wrong to arrest me and put me through the tortuous experience I suffered at their hands," said Mr Sabir.

He added that he cannot forget "all those other innocent people like me who have suffered at the hands of the police but do not have the chance or means to vindicate their names".

The Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police agreed to pay the compensation for Mr Sabir's arrest under the Terrorism Act 2000. Mr Sabir and his lawyers argued the text he downloaded is well established as a document used for research in counter-terrorism policy.

A friend of Mr Sabir, Hachim Yezza, a member of staff at the university who was helping him write his PhD proposal, was also arrested and later released. He claimed he spent days in solitary confinement.

Mr Sabir brought proceedings against Nottinghamshire Police for false imprisonment and breaches of the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

He also claimed under the Data Protection Act 1998 regarding false information on Nottinghamshire Police records, including an unfounded assertion that he had been convicted of a terrorist offence.

Nottinghamshire Police admitted there was "no evidence to justify any criminal charge" against Mr Sabir and agreed to delete inaccurate information from intelligence files.