Though Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the failed plot to blow up a Delta Airlines aircraft flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, the case has generated more questions than answers. The many questions generated all point in the direction that American agents knew about the plot to blow up the Delta flight 253 and deliberately allowed Abdulmutallab on it. The questions also point in the direction of a conspiracy theory with an indication that Abdulmutallab might have been nothing more than a pawn in a political game.
Abdulmutallab’s father, a famous banker who owns Nigeria’s first Islamic bank had alerted American and British authorities about his son’s new found radicalism. Street Journal also gathered that he was thereafter denied entry into England where he schooled. It was however surprising that the United States decided to issue him a visa despite the country’s anti-terror stand.
In a victim impact statement made in the open court by Kurt Haskell, a Michigan lawyer who also happened to be an eyewitness, it was disclosed that Abdulmutallab did the seemingly impossible as he boarded the flight without a passport! Haskell told the court that “on Christmas Day 2009, my wife and I were returning from an African safari and had a connecting flight through Amsterdam. As we waited for our flight, we sat on the floor next to the boarding gate. What I witnessed while sitting there and subsequent events have changed my life forever. While I sat there, I witnessed Umar dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, being escorted around security by a man in a tan suit who spoke perfect American English and who aided Umar in boarding without a passport. The airline gate worker initially refused Umar boarding until the man in the tan suit intervened. The event meant nothing to me at the time. Little did I know that Umar would try to kill me a few hours later as our flight approached Detroit.”
And after the failed attempt to detonate the explosive, the plane touched down in Detroit, Haskell and almost every other person on the plane found it rather surprising that the plane taxied up to the gate. The passengers also found it shocking they were forced to sit on the plane for 20 minutes with powder from the so called bomb all over the cabin. The officers that boarded the plane did nothing to ensure passenger safety and did not check for accomplices or other explosive devices. Several passengers trampled through parts of the bomb as they exited the plane.
Abdulmutallab’s statement that there was another bomb on board was ignored by the officers who took him away. “We were then taken into the terminal with our unchecked carry on bags. Again, there was no concern for our safety even though Umar told the officers that there was another bomb on board as he exited the plane. I wondered why nobody was concerned about our safety; accomplices or other bombs and the lack of concern worried me greatly. I immediately told the FBI my story in order to help catch the accomplice I had seen in Amsterdam. It soon became obvious that the FBI wasn’t interested in what I had to say. For one month the government refused to admit the existence of the man in the tan suit before changing course and admitting his existence in an ABC News article on January 22, 2010. That was the last time the government talked about this man”. Haskell stated.
Meanwhile, in the article cited by the Detroit lawyer, Dutch police admitted that Abdulmutallab did not show his passport in Amsterdam, an indication that he did not go through security at the airport in Amsterdam.
Further credence was lent to the fact that Abdulmutallab was a pawn when Patrick Kennedy of the State Department admitted during a Congress hearing that Abdulmutallab was a known terrorist, was being followed, and the U.S. allowed him into the U.S. so that it could catch his accomplices.
Haskell further stated in his testimony that he was “shocked and saddened when Michael Leiter of the National Counter terrorism Center admitted during these same hearings that intentionally letting terrorists into the U.S. was a frequent practice of the U.S. Government. I cannot fully explain my sadness, disappointment and fear when I realized that my government allowed an attack on me intentionally”
Another damning revelation in Haskell’s statement was the fact that in late 2010, the FBI admitted that it gave out intentionally defective bombs to the Portland Christmas Tree Bomber, the Wrigley Field Bomber and several others. The victim also stated further that “Mr. Chambers was quoted in the Free Press on January 11, 2011 when he indicated that the government’s own explosives experts had indicated that Umar’s (Abdulmutallab) bomb was impossibly defective. I wondered how that could be. Certainly, I thought, Al Qaeda wouldn’t go through all of the trouble to plan such an attack only to provide the terrorist with an impossibly defective bomb”.
In other words, Mr. Chambers’ comments could indicate that the explosive device carried by Abdulmutallab was from the FBI and not from the Al-Qaeda Group.
A twist occurred that changed the course of the trial not so long after. At the hearing on January 28, the prosecution requested to block evidence from Mr. Chambers “as it could then be able to be obtained by third parties, who could use it in a civil suit against the government”. That singular action went a long way in preventing the whole truth about the Abdulmutallab case from coming to the fore.
Abdulmutallab had also listed Haskell as his only witness. The witness however could not testify again as Abdulmutallab suddenly entered a guilty plea five days after listing the Michigan lawyer who saw it from Amsterdam as his only witness.
It has already been alleged in some quarters that Abdulmutallab was “used” in the bid to effect some policy changes in the US. The reason is not far fetched; minimal efforts have been made to reveal the identity of the man who allowed Abdulmutallab to pass without security check. Also the reason behind the intentional allowance of terrorists into the US has not been stated. Moreover, the fact that the officers neither searched for more explosives, nor checked for accomplices was an indication that they were aware there was none despite claims by the apprehended “terrorist” there were more bombs in the aircraft. When Patrick Kennedy was asked questions as to how the Nigerian was issued American visa despite being a known terrorist, how he passed through without being checked, he said “I can’t tell you that publicly. I’ll tell you in private”
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