MANILA, 9 July 2003 — Amid criticism from the media, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) has removed from a watch list the name of a retired Saudi commercial airline pilot suspected of terrorist links. He is now free to leave the country.
But 66-year-old Mohameed Saeed Al-Bukhari, once a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, said he would first clear his name before returning to Saudi Arabia. “They are throwing me out with a terrorist tag,” Bukhari told Arab News. “They are telling me to leave the country in disgrace.”
Bukhari’s name remains on the bureau’s blacklist, which means he cannot re-enter the Philippines.
He said by virtue of being on the blacklist in the Philippines he might also be blacklisted in the US and other countries
This would be unfortunate, he said, since “I am a traveler. I love traveling from country to country. I have grown used to it.” Bukhari was a Saudia pilot for 35 years before retiring last year to open an export business.
Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo, in a memorandum on July 1 that ordered Bukhari’s name struck from the watch list, admitted that Bukhari’s name was placed on the blacklist and watch list in May 2002 at the request of the US Embassy in Manila “relative to a matter of international security.”
No other evidence was cited, and the letter said the watch list order was lifted only on the basis of evidence from Bukhari’s Filipino lawyer, Renato Peralta, that “the subject categorically denied that he was a terrorist.”
Bukhari said this was an indication that “they have no evidence against me.”
