Indian-descent man helped Abdulmutallab board Flight 253?

Taylor: A Taylor attorney who was aboard a terrorist-targeted Christmas Day flight to Detroit says he was not surprised to hear al-Qaida claim responsibility for the attempted bombing Monday because he does not believe the man now in federal custody acted alone.
Kurt Haskell said he and his wife, Lori, were playing cards near the boarding gate in Amsterdam when he saw a well-dressed man who appeared to be of Indian descent come to the assistance of the man he later learned was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The 23-year-old Nigerian was having trouble boarding the plane he is accused of trying to blow up because he had no passport, Haskell said.
"I think what I saw was his handler ... getting him on the plane," said Haskell, who was returning from a safari in Uganda.
The Indian man, who looked about 50 years old, told ticket agents Abdulmutallab did not have a passport but needed to get on the plane, the Haskells said.
The ticket agent told the man nobody was allowed to board without a passport, to which the well-dressed man replied: "We do this all the time; he's from Sudan," Lori Haskell said, adding she and her husband believe the man was trying to pass Abdulmutallab off as a Sudanese refugee.
The two were then directed down a corridor to talk to a manager, she said.
"This meant nothing to me until this man tried to blow up the plane," Kurt Haskell said.
Abdulmutallab is charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft and placing a destructive device aboard an aircraft. He allegedly had chemical explosives concealed under his clothing. His attempt to detonate them as the plane approached Detroit created a fire, but he was restrained by passengers and flight crew who put out the blaze, federal authorities say.
Kurt Haskell said he does not believe the well-dressed man ever boarded the flight because he looked for him when the FBI gathered all the passengers for questioning at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The FBI and federal prosecutors would not comment Monday on the Haskells' story, but foreign media reports said military police in the Netherlands were examining security video to check the account of an airport accomplice. Some foreign media reports quoted the military police as saying Abdulmutallab boarded the flight without going through passport control.
U.S. officials have said Abdulmutallab had a multi-entry visa to the United States. They have not specifically said whether he had a passport, but visas are typically, though not always, stamped into passports.
Edward Hasbrouck, author of the travel book series "The Practical Nomad" and an expert on international travel, said something about the story does not add up.
If Abdulmutallab did not have the proper travel documents, it is not clear how he got from Lagos, Nigeria, to the Netherlands, because someone from KLM, as well as government officials, would have checked his documents, Hasbrouck said.
29/12/09 Paul Egan/The Detroit News, USA

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Categories: Foreign Dec 2009, Safety Dec 2009