Posted on 12/23/2001 6:12:01 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:39:16 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
PARIS (AP) -- French police said Sunday the man who boarded a jetliner with possible explosives hidden in his shoes was a Sri Lankan national traveling on a British passport.
American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami was forced to make an emergency landing in Boston on Saturday after the passenger, identified by French police as Tariq Raja, tried to ignite what authorities called an improvised explosive in his sneakers.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Until the possible part of "possible explosives" is revealed what possible interest could there be in this person?
PLUS, they would be an unpleasant experience for islamic extremist!
Authorities said the mans passport was almost certainly false. The radio news network Europe One reporting that the man told FBI officials that his real name was Addel Him Rarrajid and that he came from Sri Lanka. However, French police on Sunday identified the man as Tariq Raja, a Sri Lankan national traveling on a British passport.
The French police, who opened an investigation on Sunday into the incident, said Rajas identity and nationality were learned from sources in the United States. The police would not specify whether the information came from U.S. law enforcement authorities, government aviation officials or American Airlines.
The Boston Globe reported Sunday that although the man told a passenger that he was Jamaican, a passenger said he was told that Reid had conversed with a crew member in Arabic. But an FBI official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the man was not of Middle Eastern descent, contrary to earlier speculation.
Europe One reported that FBI officials found a map of Brussels in the mans possession, with crosses marked on certain streets, leading investigators to believe that he had spent some time in Brussels. Authorities in Belgium were investigating his activities in that country.
Good point! Maybe the days of online "pick your seat assignment" should be over. If not, at least the security should carefully profile seat assignments in "critical areas".
From the pics of this dude I wouldn't have let him within 3 miles of an airliner. No bags checked or carry-ons on a transatlantic flight? "Well he had a passport ..." - from Holland where they recently had thousands of blank passports stolen ... Looks like they hammered his left eye pretty good. Way to go guys!
;0)
Political correctness prevents people from having good sense. Anyone who boarded the plane with someone who looks like this guy deserved to blow up in the plane for being ignorant about current events and reality. Anyone who thinks frisking American grannies is going to prevent more tragedies also doesn't have much sense.
Quite right,kinda hard to give a statement with no fu***ng teeth.
Exactly,the French USED to be pretty good at this security stuff.If this guy isnt a profile,I dont know who is.
If the plane had exploded, we'd have been told it was nothing more than some kind of malfunction. We'd be shown pictures of the tail and told it was just another plane with a tail that fell off during the flight.
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Interesting. He may be Sri Lankan, but Tariq is a Pakistani name.
You got that right.
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