He said: “I was released and had one night in the hotel – I still couldn’t go out of the bedroom, I couldn’t leave the room. “Every time the phone went I had palpitations.” Mr Bond said he received one call from the president, which he assumed to be the head of the Clifton Rotary Club of which he is a member It turned out to be President Mbeki. Mr Bond said that at times he feared he would not make it through his incarceration: “I was put into huge cells with murderers, rapists and drug addicts My spirits started to sink and sink. At one point I thought am I going to survive?” He spoke of his incredulity at his arrest and was “dumbstruck” that he had to be extradited to the US. He said: “I was placed in custody and I did have one night on my own in a cell, a concrete-floored cell … just given a small sleeping mat and a rather tatty blanket.” Robert Johnston, a federal magistrate, ordered that Mr Sykes be held in custody yesterday, pending his transfer to Houston, Texas, where he faces trial for fraud.As Derek Bond, Mr Sykes had been indicted in December 1999 on 22 charges of wire fraud, money laundering and interstate transportation of stolen property.

He denies the charges.An FBI spokesman said agents were investigating whether Mr Sykes stole Mr Bond’s identity and used it to cover his tracks for up to 14 years. The Immigration and Naturalisation Service is also investigating whether Mr Sykes overstayed his visa.The British embassy in Washington said it had been informed of Mr Sykes’ arrest and was arranging consular access. Mr Bond, a former engineer who is also a trustee of a charity, was questioned at Cape Town airport on 27 January. He was arrested a few days later in a KwaZulu-Natal holiday village.. Ah, to be a “viable” state! The word “viable” has now become the be-all and end-all of American policy towards Palestine. “For its part,” George Bush told us, “the new government of Israel, as the terror threat is removed and security improves, will be expected to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state.”

Ah, to be a “viable” state! The word “viable” has now become the be-all and end-all of American policy towards Palestine.

It’s just another word trick to kick-arse the Arabs into support – or at least acquiescence – in the American invasion of Iraq.Not once did President Bush mention the word “oil” – save for a brief reference to the disastrous oil-for-food “programme” – though there was just one mention of the occupied territories (or “so-called occupied” as Donald Rumsfeld infamously called them). But once America occupies Iraq, what argument can the Arabs deploy against Israel? If the West Bank is occupied, well so is Iraq. If the United States occupied Iraq to spare the world from “terror”, why shouldn’t Israel occupy the West Bank to spare itself from “terror”? Few have yet worked through this dangerous equation.Much of the Bush speech to the American Enterprise Institute was written in the language of Israel. “If war is forced upon us by Iraq’s refusal to disarm, we’ll meet an enemy who hides his military forces behind civilians, who has terrible weapons, who’s capable of any crime.” This is precisely the language of Ariel Sharon. The equation that other Arab states are expected to understand is contained in that ominous suggestion by Mr Bush that after the “passing” of Saddam Hussein’s regime, “other regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror will not be tolerated”. Primarily, this is a message for Syria, then for Iran and then for anyone else who has not knelt before the Americans.To support this, we are asked to believe – even the Arabs who live in the Middle East are asked to believe – that “in Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could [sic] enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilised world”. The same man “has close ties to terrorist organisations and could [sic] supply them with the terrible means to strike this country”.