WASHINGTON/PARIS, 24 December — Mystery still surrounds the man who was thwarted from an alleged suicide mission aboard a trans-Atlantic flight on Saturday.
The man said to be carrying explosives in his shoes attempted to blow up an American jetliner over the Atlantic. US authorities were trying to determine yesterday whether he was acting alone or connected to a terror network.
French police said the man who boarded the plane with what authorities say were explosives hidden in his shoes was a Sri Lankan national traveling on a forged 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 28-year-old Tariq Raja, allegedly tried to ignite a substance in his sneakers.
The substance tested positive for explosives, US law enforcement officials said. Further tests are being conducted to determine the exact substance Raja was carrying. Laura White, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Airport Authority, said the material in the man’s shoe was consistent with C-4, a plastic explosive used for both industrial and military purposes. Plastic explosives of that type cannot be detected by X-rays or other scanning devices used in airports, transportation experts said, explaining that the explosive can only be detected by sniffer dogs. X-rays of the suspect’s shoes revealed holes had been drilled into the heel and filled with what is believed to be explosive powder, authorities said.
An official with the French Border Police, which opened an investigation into the incident, said they learned of Raja’s identity and nationality from sources in the United States. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say whether the information came from US law enforcement authorities, government aviation officials or American Airlines.
Raja, who the French official said was traveling on a British passport under the name Richard Colvin Reid, was quickly subdued, and the jetliner with 185 passengers and 12 crew members on board landed safely at Logan International Airport. French police said that Raja — who also goes by the name Abdel Rahim — tried to take the same flight on Friday but was pulled aside by police after raising suspicions. After intensive questioning, Raja was given the green light to board — but only after he had missed the flight. Raja said he was traveling to Antigua to visit family, police said.
A French police source said airline staff at Charles de Gaulle Airport had turned the man away at the check-in on Friday because he was "behaving bizarrely, was agitated and had a worrying look." "The next day, the man passed through, again without baggage. Usually someone taking a long haul flight without luggage should be reported to police in the country he boarded, but this was not done," the source said.
French police said the man was carrying a British passport, bearing his own photograph, which had been issued three weeks earlier by the British Consulate in Brussels in the name of Richard Colvin Reid, born in 1973. "It was a real passport issued on false identity papers," one source said. The source also said the man told the FBI in the United States that his real name was Tariq Raja and he was born in 1973 in Sri Lanka. He had also identified himself to Boston police as Sri Lankan national Abdel Rahim, reflecting his conversion to Islam.
But in London officials said the man is probably British despite some doubt over his identity papers. "We believe he’s British but there is some doubt as to the validity of his papers," said a Scotland Yard spokesman, adding that the suspect’s nationality is still being confirmed.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the British authorities were working closely with the FBI in the United States to determine the identity of the man. "We believe that he’s British, and we’ll continue to work on that assumption," the spokeswoman said.
The suspect was being held in Boston and faced an initial charge of interfering with a flight crew, an FBI spokeswoman said.
Passengers from the diverted flight began arriving in Miami early yesterday. One of them, 6’8" (203 cm) professional basketball player Kwame James, said three or four men had a hard time pinning the suspect down. James said a flight attendant had summoned him to help subdue the man, who was described as at least 6’4" tall (193 cm) and weighing more than 200 pounds (90 kg).
"Yes, she just said, ‘We need some big guys back there real quick,’ and I ran back down there to see what was going on," James told ABC’s "This Week." About three men were wrestling with the passenger. "So I proceeded to help out, hold him down," he said. "And he was just — he was unbelievably strong. You know, he at least fought off three or four of us. So a doctor came by, gave him an injection, and then we tied him up with everything we could get our hands on, belts, just anything that could tie. ... But he was just unbelievably strong, almost possessed."
A French passenger on the plane, Thierry Dugeon, said he realized something was wrong when he heard a woman shout from about 10 rows away, "I need help, I need help."
"I jumped up and ran down and there were people there already wrestling with the bad guy. ... There were numerous passengers grabbing him. ... We grabbed his hands and tried to put him under control," Dugeon said. The man bit a flight attendant on the hand, he added.
The drama began four hours into the flight when a flight attendant smelt sulfur while passing by the suspect and saw him trying to ignite a wire stuck in his shoe. Asked what he was doing, the man said he was trying to light the explosives in his sneakers. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS that the man "was trying to blow himself up, blow the plane up and we are very fortunate that it did not happen." Shelby said federal authorities were taking the matter very seriously.
