Ahem.... yawn....'shoe bomber' on Denver flight subdued by air marshall

[Magda Hassan]

Air marshal subdues man on DC-Denver flight

Updated at 07:58 PM today
In a file photo a United Airlines plane heads away from the gates of the B concourse at Denver International Airport Aug. 24, 2006.


Tags:
terrorism, transportation, united airlines, national/world


WASHINGTON -- The FBI is probing whether a man tried to ignite his shoes on a DC to Denver flight Wednesday, according to law enforcement officials, who say the man is a Qatari diplomat.

An official said an air marshal on the flight apparently restrained them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
The officials said fighter jets were scrambled but proved unnecessary, as the plane landed safely in Denver with no injuries to passengers.
Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Kristin Lee said the man is being interviewed by law enforcement officials in Denver.
Two officials say the man is a Qatari diplomat who has been in the United States for years.
Unlike the Christmas Day bomb attempt on an Detroit-bound airliner, officials say it is not immediately clear what the man was trying to do -- something harmful like start a fire or explosion, or something as innocent as smoke a cigarette.
Officials insisted Wednesday night it was still too early to tell whether the incident was an attempted act of terrorism or a giant misunderstanding.
A media hot line at Denver International Airport says the United Flight 663 from Washington to Denver was met by FBI and TSA officials around 7 p.m. MDT. Airport officials didn't immediately return phone calls to The Associated Press.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section...id=7374348

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FBI: No Explosives Found on United Jet in Denver


Authorities Say Qatari Diplomat Told Air Marshals, 'I'm Lighting My Shoes'[URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/air-marshals-stop-shoe-bomb-attempt-united-jet/comments?type=story&id=10315314"]
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By RHONDA SCHWARTZ, RICHARD ESPOSITO and BRIAN ROSS

Apr. 7, 2010

FBI agents say no explosives were found in the shoes of a Qatar diplomat who was subdued by federal air marshals on a United flight to Denver Wednesday night after allegedly telling the marshals, "I'm lighting my shoes on fire."
United Airlines aircraft are lined up at their gates at Denver International Airport, December 9, 2002.
(Gary C. Caskey/Reuters)
More Photos

Authorities say the diplomat was wrestled to the ground and two F-16 fighter jets were dispatched to accompany the 757 on the final 40 minutes of its flight to Denver. Flight 663 originated from Washington Reagan airport.
A US security official said, "it may have been a massive misunderstanding" and the diplomat's statement may have been a "sarcastic" comment when he was confronted by two air marshals who had been told by flight attendants that smoke was coming from the lavatory.
Law enforcement authorities in Denver say the air marshals and the diplomat were in a "physical confrontation."
The suspect was identified by authorities as a diplomat in the Qatar embassy in Washington, Mohammed al Modadi, 27. The FBI said the man had full diplomat immunity as the 3rd secretary and vice-consul.

The plane was taken to a remote location after landing at Denver and passengers were questioned by FBI agents about the incident. A bomb squad team and explosives-sniffing dogs were still on board the plane late Wednesday night.
Authorities said White House officials had been briefed on the incident as it unfolded.http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/air-marsha...d=10315314

[Magda Hassan]

I reckon there will be one in California soon and one for the north west of the US. Lets see now, they've managed to scare the people in Texas with the pilot flying into the IRS building, the underpants of doom flew into Chicago, and there was 911 in NY, anthrax in Florida and the East Coast. Denver's turn now. :elefant:

[Ed Jewett]

AP source: Man on flight trying to sneak smoke
By IVAN MORENO and DEVLIN BARRETT (AP) – 44 minutes ago**


[**shortly after 1 AM Thus Apr 8, 2010 EDT or GMT -5]


DENVER — A Qatari diplomat trying to sneak a smoke in an airplane bathroom sparked a bomb scare Wednesday night on a flight from Washington to Denver, with fighter jets scrambled and law enforcement put on high alert, officials said.
No explosives were found on the man, and officials do not believe he was trying to harm anyone, according to a senior law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The incident comes three months after the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day when a Nigerian man tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner. Since then, law enforcement, flight crews and passengers have been on high alert for suspicious activity on airplanes. The scare exposed major holes in the country's national security and prompted immediate changes in terror-screening policies.
An Arab diplomat briefed on the matter identified the diplomat as Mohammed Al-Madadi.
Two law enforcement officials said investigators were told the man was asked about the smell of smoke in the bathroom and he made a joke that he had been trying to light his shoes — an apparent reference to the 2001 so-called "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.
The sources asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Officials said air marshals aboard the flight restrained the man and he was questioned. The plane landed safely as military jets were scrambled.
Hours after the plane landed, the man was still being interviewed by investigators, and it was unclear what if any charges he might face.
Dave Klaversma, 55, of Parker, Colo., said his wife, Laura, was sitting behind the man in the first-class section of the United flight. She said she saw the man go into the bathroom and that moments later he said something to the flight crew. After that, two U.S. marshals in the first-class section apprehended the man and sat next to him for the remainder of the flight.
Klaversma said his wife told him it all happened very quietly and that "there was no hysteria, no struggle, nothing." She said she noticed nothing unusual about the man before the incident.
Another passenger, 61-year-old Scott Smith of Laramie, Wyo., said he was seated toward the middle of the plane and didn't notice any disturbance during the flight.
"The approach into Denver was unusual," Smith, a computer programmer, told reporters by cell phone. "We came in rather fast, and we were flying low for a long period of time. I've never seen a jetliner do that. There were no announcements, nothing about your carryon bags or tray tables."
Once on the ground, Smith said, the pilot eventually announced that "we have a situation here on the plane."
Smith said passengers remained on the plane for nearly an hour before they were taken off for questioning.
The Boeing 757 was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members, United Airlines spokesman Michael Trevino said. It left Reagan National Airport at 5:19 p.m. EDT and landed at Denver International Airport at 7 p.m. MDT.
The flight crew radioed air traffic control to ask that the flight be met on the ground by law enforcement, Trevino said.
The airport remained open during the incident, and no flights were delayed or canceled, airport spokesman Jeff Green said. Inside the terminal, passengers from other flights picked up their luggage at baggage carriers, apparently unaware of any emergency.
Erin Montroy, who was passing through the airport on her way from Kansas City to Las Vegas, said she hadn't heard anything about the incident and wasn't alarmed.
"I don't really ever feel as threatened as they think we should," she said.
A senior State Department official said the agency was aware of the tentative identification of the man as a Qatari diplomat and that there would be "consequences, diplomatic and otherwise" if he had committed a crime.
The latest edition of department's Diplomatic List, a registry of foreign diplomats working in the United States, identifies a man named Mohammed Yaaqob Y.M. Al-Madadi as the third secretary for the Qatari Embassy in Washington. Third secretary is a relatively low-ranking position at any diplomatic post and it was not immediately clear what his responsibilities would have been.
Foreign diplomats in the United States, like American diplomats posted abroad, have broad immunity from prosecution. The official said if the man's identity as a Qatari diplomat was confirmed and if it was found that he may have committed a crime, U.S. authorities would have to decide whether to ask Qatar to waive his diplomatic immunity so he could be charged and tried. Qatar could decline, the official said, and the man would likely be expelled from the United States.
Qatar, about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, is an oil- and gas-rich monarchy and close U.S. ally of about 1.4 million people on the Arabian peninsula, surrounded by three sides by the Persian Gulf and to the south by Saudi Arabia.
The country hosts the forward headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which runs the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and is major supporter of operations deemed critical to both campaigns. It also played a prime role in the 1991 Gulf War, which drove Saddam Hussein's Iraq out of Kuwait.
Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan, Matthew Lee, Matt Apuzzo, Joan Lowy, Pauline Jelinek and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Judith Kohler and David Zalubowski in Denver contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.





http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...wD9EUM8PO1

[Peter Lemkin]

So, he was trying to light a cigarette, not his shoe....:willy::hmmmm2:

[Magda Hassan]

More likely the crime was he was an Arab having a cigarette.

[Ed Jewett]

Well, given that effluent flows downhill, I'd guess the mindset we sense out here at the end of the media tube is amplified intensely inside the agencies charged with security, the same twitchy trigger of mind that was evidenced elsewhere recently. Some calkl it jumping to conclusions, some call it premature cognitive committment (see Ellen Langer's books on mindfulness), etc. We have been told to be on the lookout for without precise descriptions and characterizations and so, indeed, Magda, we get stereotyping and profiling. Deep in my blog is a story about an Orthodox Jew taken off a flight in Montreal because he was incessantly rocking back and forth as he prayed. And yet movement and mind and spirit are inseparably linked.

[Ed Jewett]

Well, here's a new report...

Was it an act of formal harassment? MindWars? In-your-face tweaking? Given the "reporting " correspondent....


Qatari Diplomat Was Going to See Qaeda Inmate


Qatari Diplomat Allegedly Told Air Marshalls He Was Trying to Set His Sandals on Fire


45 comments
By KIRIT RADIA and JASON RYAN

April 8, 2010

The Qatari diplomat who was arrested for sarcastically telling air marshals on a jetliner that he was trying to set his shoes on fire was en route to visit an imprisoned member of al Qaeda at the Supermax prison in Colorado.

Mohammed Al-Madadi, a 27 year old official at the Qatari embassy in Washington, has full diplomatic immunity that makes charging him in U.S. courts very difficult.

Federal officials confirmed that he will not face any charges, saying he "absolutely will not be charged with a crime. He has diplomatic immunity. He invoked it."

The joke, however, probably will cost al-Madadi his post in the U.S.


Related
No Laughing Matter: Poor Sense of Humor Costs More Than Time

No Charges for Qatar Diplomat in Plane Scare

FBI: No Bomb Found on United Jet in Denver

The diplomat is on his way back to Washington today and is expected to be sent out of the country soon as both sides are looking for a way to bring the matter to a close without further embarrassment, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to diplomatic sensitivities surrounding the situation.
Al-Madadi was flying first class to Denver for a consular visit with jailed al Qaeda member Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri who is imprisoned at the Colorado "supermax" penitentiary. Al-Marri was arrested in Illinois shortly after the 9/11 attacks and is believed to have been an al Qaeda sleeper agent.

During the flight, the diplomat allegedly went to the bathroom about 40 minutes before landing for a surreptitious smoke, an act that is against federal law. When flight attendants saw smoke coming from the bathroom, they alerted air marshalls who asked Al-Madadi what he was doing.
Al-Madadi allegedly made the off-handed comment to the officials he was trying to light his shoes on fire, at which point the air marshalls detained him and alerted authorities on the ground. Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to escort the plane and President Obama was notified of the incident as he flew to Prague on board Air Force One.
After hours of questioning at a nearby hotel, law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities determined Al-Madadi posed no terror threat and he was released. U.S. and Qatari officials were in frequent contact Wednesday night and today, both in Washington and in Doha. A delegation from the Qatari embassy in Washington met him in Denver this morning.

The State Department today would not confirm Al-Madadi will be sent out of the country.
"I expect this to be resolved very quickly," spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters, though he declined to elaborate how.

"I understand that we have options available to us. I understand the Qatari government has options available to them," he added, referring to the U.S. right to declare Al-Madadi "persona non grata" that would essentially kick him out of the country, something neither side wants due to the diplomatic embarrassment it entails.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) estimates it cost U.S. taxpayers about $7,500 an hour to keep an F-16 jet in the air, including maintenance and fuel. Crowley said today that the United States has no plans to ask Qatar to reimburse them for the cost.
ABC's Luis Martinez contributed to this report.