Brazilian police curious about mystery bag (sailor didn't die of anthrax, but questions remain)

Halifax Daily News ^ | April 30, 2003 | Chris Lambie

[FairOpinion]

An Egyptian sailor who died in Brazil of a suspected case of anthrax aboard a merchant ship now quarantined outside Halifax Harbour was carrying a bag to a friend in Canada, say Brazilian police.

They alerted Interpol about the potentially contaminated package Ibrahim Sayed Soliman Ibrahim was carrying on the Wadi Alarab, said Neder Duarte, federal police chief of the city of Belem in Brazil’s northern state of Para.

“Maybe he had opened the luggage and then had problems with anthrax,” Duarte told The Daily News yesterday.

Brazilian police are investigating the case to determine if Ibrahim was somehow involved with bioterrorism, Duarte said.

“We cannot affirm really that link of terrorism,” he said. “But we have to investigate that possibility.”

Brazilian police don’t know who Ibrahim was supposed to deliver the package to, or where it was going in Canada, Duarte said.

“The bag didn’t come out from the the ship, just the corpse came out from the ship,” he said. “The bag is in Canada because the bag went with the ship.”

Mounties, however, say they are not probing the case.

“We have not been asked to conduct any sort of criminal investigation or terrorist investigation at all,” said RCMP Sgt. Wayne Noonan.

“We are still saying that Health Canada (is) our lead agency.”

Mounties have not found the bag Brazilian police indicated Ibrahim was carrying before he died.

“We have no information about any suitcase containing any foreign or biological material,” Noonan said.

“And we haven’t been asked to do any investigation by Interpol or by the Brazilian authorities.”

Ibrahim — who was second-in-command on the Wadi Alarab — died about 11 days ago of septicimia, which occurs when toxins from the bacteria enter the blood stream and do damage to the organs. There was strong hemorrhaging of the lungs, pancreas and brain, a symptom consistent with anthrax poisoning.

He had travelled recently to Brazil from Cairo to join his ship, which loaded bauxite in the Amazon to take to an Alcan aluminum plant in Quebec.

Police didn’t discover he may have died from anthrax until the 225-metre-long ship had left Brazilian waters, Duarte said.

Health Canada experts visited the Wadi Alarab on Saturday to take samples from the quarantined ship. They expect results from those tests by Thursday morning, said department spokeswoman Tracy Taweel.

Brazilian authorities are almost certain anthrax killed Ibrahim. But Duarte said final test results in his country should also be available later this week.

“It’s a case of public health, so we have to know the real situation,” Francisco Adriano, another federal police agent, said in a telephone interview from Brasilia, the capital of the South American country.

[FairOpinion]

And some additional tidbits:

"Police in Belem interviewed Mr. Ibrahim's colleagues. They reportedly said he boarded a plane in Cairo with the suitcase and four other crew members."

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2003/04/30/f212.raw.html

With 4 others?!

And another article also from the Halifax News:

"The cause of the sailor’s death will be made public today, Ron St. John, director general for the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Health Canada, in Ottawa, said.

It will be released once Brazil’s top labs have performed final tests to pinpoint the bacteria."

http://www.canada.com/halifax/dailynews/story.asp?id=2D39EE3D-643B-441D-8963-DA5AA51F3104

I will be very interested to find out what is the bacteria and where is the suitcase and what's in it?

I hope it won't turn out that one of his other 4 associates, who came with him took possession of it and hid it, then will deliver it.

Sounds like the Canadians weren't really that thourough in searching the ship, just swabbed it here and there.

I think we haven't heard the end of this story yet.

[FairOpinion]

Ping

Thought you'd want to keep up. There are a few more interesting tidbits here.

[aristeides]

Case seems to get more and more mysteriuus.

[aristeides]

I assume that, under the story you cite, the mystery bag is with the rest of the luggage staying in Belem to be analyzed.

[FairOpinion]

"The IML of
Pará sent samples of the brain, pâncreas and lung of Ibrahim for a control
center of illnesses of the government of the United States. "We have to clarify
this mystery. If it was not for anthrax, as it affirms the contratest of the
Evandro Chagas, then which the true cause ", it wants to know the director of
the IML, Malcher Luis."

----

Well I am certainly glad somebody wants to get to the bottom of it.

In one of the articles I posted an excerpt from they said, they will have the actual cause of death and the identification of the bacteria by Thursday, but didn't say anything about the CDC.

[FairOpinion]

There seems to be some confusion about the bag. Some say it was taken off the ship, some say it wasn't, then some say, it's not known where it is, because supposedly it was left on the ship, but isn't there anymore, etc.

I wonder if anyone is interviewing the 4 other guys, who came with Ibrahim from Egypt.

[aristeides]

And divergent accounts from such people as the 4 could account for the confusion about whether it was a suitcase or a package that was involved.

[John H K]

The problem is that some articles appear "behind the curve" and appear AFTER earlier articles that actually have NEWER information.

[aristeides]

"It is not anthrax, but it is a highly lethal bacterium,"

Even if that's true, I don't see how it's any comfort. Whatever the bacterium is, if it has effects like those of anthrax, it's just as much of a threat.

[Mitchell]

It looks like the final autopsy report is really no different than what has been said for the last week - namely that it is believed 90% that it was anthrax that killed him.

I don't think that's correct. The article says outright that "the tissue analyzed tested negative for anthrax." ("O material analisado... deu negativo para o antraz.") That appears to be the stated reason for having ruled that Ibrahim's death was not caused by anthrax.

The reference to the 90% chance seems to refer to Malcher's opinion yesterday (ontem), before the autopsy results were released.

However, the autopsy is inconclusive in that the cause of death is still unknown, although it says that anthrax has been ruled out.

I assume from the translation that the biopsy parts have been sent to the CDC in Atlanta.

Yes, I think they're sending tissue samples to the CDC. This strongly suggests that there's no cover-up and that the negative anthrax test is genuine.

[Cicero]

None of the stories I've read about this have explained what happened to the suitcase or bag. It was called a suitcase in the earlier stories. And in British usage, "bag" is the word used for suitcase. so it's more likely to be a suitcase than a duffle.

[Shermy]

True.

Just to add to the confusion in the other posts here, the "suitcase" and "bag" had also been id'd as a "package."

[Shermy]

If it was anthrax there would be panic.

Not much in the tropical Amazon I bet. Prompted by this incident I shuffled thru their web sites for stories. There are more than a few unrelated stories about innoculation programs, diseases and the like.

[Shermy]

Rarely did the articles mention "antraz" - though their was one mentioning it regarding livestock, I recall.