Posted on 12/29/2009 11:57:00 PM PST by myknowledge
The Dutch military police are investigating reports that an accomplice may have helped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam on Christmas day without a passport.
Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up the Detroit-bound plane with an explosive chemical called “PETN” he smuggled through security. He was charged on Saturday with trying to destroy an airplane, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Meanwhile, a Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport.
But Dutch authorities have dismissed claims that Abdulmutallab boarded the flight without a passport. A spokesman for its counter-terrorism office said: “He had a passport and a valid visa for the United States and KLM had clearance on the passenger list to carry him to the US.”
Kurt Haskell of Newport, Michigan, (see photo on right) talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the same flight as Abdul Mutallab by sending a picture of his boarding pass to the website. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight 253 on Friday.
Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man. Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys.
While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time.’”
Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab’s lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.
The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn’t see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.
Haskell described Mutallab as a diminutive man who looks like a teenager.
As Mutallab was being led out of the plane in handcuffs, Haskell said he realized that was the same man he saw trying to board the plane in Amsterdam.
About an hour after landing, Haskell said he saw another man being taken into custody. But a spokeswoman from the FBI in Detroit said Mutallab was the only person taken into custody.
there’s reports the other man taken into custody was someone who was videotaping the flight, including the tackling of the terrorist forever to be known as the peckerless wonder
Do you need a passport if you are only escorting someone on the flight and you yourself will not leave the airport and return home?
Where are the airport video? I want to see them! We can see airport videos of people tazered and beaten to a pulp by the security guards. However when it involves a real world terrorist. Nada! Nope. Not going to see it.
Bring on the crickets.
So in case the bombing failed they'd have a picture of what happened? Always nice to have a memento of a close call, I suppose.
That's it? How about 300 counts of attempted murder?
So if he did have the documents they say he did, what was all the song-and-dance concerning trying to get him on board without them all about? Could KLM mean that they had a record of a passport that was shown in the past rather than seeing the actual thing now?
Bummer cares more about machines than people?
Why isn’t anyone (as far as news reports go) looking for the Dutch manager who spoke to the tall Indian and the Nigerian terrorist behind closed doors? Not only do you need a passport to get ON the plane, you also need one to get OFF in the USA + a visa. So, what difference would it make to allow him to BOARD? Unless it is a wider conspiracy, that is, and they didn’t expect him to get off in the normal way.
Did the flier have a passport when he purchased his round trip tickets from Lagos to Amsterdam to Detroit for cash?
Did the flier have a passport to board the plane in Lagos on Christmas Eve, bound for Amsterdam?
By the way, most of the "Lagos to Detroit" tickets rout via Atlanta and not Amsterdam. The thing I heard was Holland does not permit US Armed Air Marshals to board US bound planes from Amsterdam, making a Marshal free rout into the US. Not cool, if true.
Abdul Mutallab had purchased ‘one way tickets’ because he wanted to martyr himself by detonating his PETN bomb in his undies aboard Flight 253.
Nigerian officials said the man's round-trip plane ticket was bought on Dec. 16 in Accra, Ghana, for $2,831 in cash, presumably by Abdulmutallab himself.
He was flying Coach. I just did a round trip search for Lagos to Detroit. Four of the cheap tickets were each $ 1,727.11 USD, two on Air France (via Paris) and two on Delta (KLM) via Amsterdam.
I think they knew that a one way ticket for cash would be a red flag, so they purchased a round trip ticket.
So many folks just repeat the MSM about the one way ticket.
I have two questions:
1.How would anyone not flying himself get to the boarding gate to intercede for this guy? He would have had to show ID to get there and certainly if he talked to someone in authority.
2. Where did the bomber’s passport get to if he had one to board?
This story just doesn’t sound right. Of course it could be easily answered if the FBI showed his passport just like his underwear.
Yes, the word “video” has been absent from the story. They should be able to track these people from outside the airport all the way up to the gate.
Where is it?
Too bad for Obama & other authorities that we have American eyewitnesses who saw what really happened.
So they say that pantybomber had a passport. Was it his original one or a replacement issued on that day? Chances are he probably claimed that he lost his passport and a new one was issued.
The FBI could be splitting hairs here. Perhaps Mutallab did have a passport but didn’t want to present it, suspecting he’d be on the no-fly list.
There are legitimate reasons for competent investigators, if there are any, to want to keep the accomplice story quiet. It seems increasingly likely that there were facilitators in Amsterdam—with the airline, with security, or both—so identifying/finding this guy and connecting dots on the ground in Amsterdam would be key.
” allegedly “?
What’s this “ allegedly “ crap.
Just so much political correctness.
This puke was caught red handed trying to blow up a jet and so as to not hurt anyones feelings he is “ allegedly “?
Hang him from a lamp post and let the people stone him.
Amending my post at #17: It’s the Dutch authorities saying he had a passport. So if there is hair-splitting going on, they’re doing so in concert with the FBI for investigational purposes, or they’re trying to cover their butts. (Probably both.)
Mutallab may indeed have had a passport—but when? Before or after the backroom confab between the mystery Indian man and the manager?
Customs officials have confirmed the arrest of the 2nd passenger.
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/flight_253_passenger_tells_msn.html
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