The latest news out of Michigan today may indeed confirm the would-be Detroit flight bomber, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, had some help in boarding a flight to America--and that he may not have even needed a valid passport to do so:
Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., [talked] exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.
Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw
Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.
Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys with
Haskell Law Firm in Taylor. Their expertise includes bankruptcy, family law and estate planning.
While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'”
Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.
