Mokhallaf bin Doham Al-Shamri claims he was harassed after an official at the airport twisted his words and alleged his baggage contained explosives. This subsequently led to the closure of Tabuk airport for four hours and a high security alert. Al-Shamri was flying on a domestic Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Tabuk to Dammam. On arriving in Dammam he found his luggage missing, reported Al-Madinah newspaper.
“I then contacted the baggage counter and lodged a formal complaint about the missing baggage. The official in charge told me that the message would be passed on to Saudia’s Jeddah headquarters,” he said. “At that time, three Yemeni passengers arrived at the counter and said they had missed their flight from Riyadh and had come by car to collect their luggage which came by plane. The official allowed them to take their baggage.
“When I saw the baggage scattered and unattended, I expressed my displeasure. I also mentioned that it would be easy for somebody to put explosives or drugs into a person’s baggage, including mine. This apparently infuriated the official and so he began harassing me.”
Al-Shamri said he was subsequently taken into custody and questioned by security officials. “They asked me about explosives inside my bag. I told them that I never said I had explosives in my luggage,” he said. He added that he later learned that Tabuk airport was shut down for four hours after Dammam airport issued a warning that a passenger’s bag contained explosives.
Al-Shamri was later informed that his luggage was not at Tabuk airport and that it had been brought to Dammam on the same flight that he came on.
