FBI pays wrongly detained man $250,000

NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI paid $250,000 this week to an Egyptian man detained when a pilot’s aviation radio was found after the Sept. 11 attacks in his hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center, his lawyer said Thursday.

A judge approved the payment to Abdallah Higazy in July, and the money was delivered this week, according to the lawyer, Jonathan S. Abady.

Higazy, 38, had sued the FBI, saying an FBI agent screamed at him, lied to him and threatened to endanger his family, leading him to offer several ways the radio got in his room and causing him to be unjustly criminally charged and imprisoned for 34 days.

Higazy, the son of an Egyptian diplomat, was charged with making false statements after a handheld pilot radio was found in a safe in the room where he stayed Sept. 11. He was detained in December 2001 after he returned to reclaim his belongings from the hotel he had fled during the attacks.

He was freed in January 2002 after another hotel guest, a pilot, told hotel officials the radio belonged to him.