The Second Man?

Clarice Feldman at American Thinker isn’t the only one bothered about the account of the second arrest made on Christmas Day among passengers from Flight 253. If it’s a nothing story, then there’s no harm in repeating it until it fizzles out. If, as passenger Lori Haskell suggests, federal officials are lying about some screw-up “while the most important investigation in 8 years was pending,” then that’s important information to get out there

Was there a second arrest in the Christmas day attack?

Clarice Feldman

The things you learn on the internet. The Detroit News reported the story of Kurt Haskell and his wife,Lori, on Flt 253 who claimed that their had been a second (Indian) man arrested in connection with the incident on the plane. The Government denied that account to him and no one gave his story much space outside of the internet.

Ever since I got off of Flight 253 I have been repeating what I saw in US Customs. Specifically, 1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish Indian man. This is not the so called "Sharp Dressed" man. I will refer to this man as "The man in orange". The man in orange, who stood some 20ft away from me the entire time until he was taken away, was immediately taken away to be searched and interrogated in a nearby room. At this time he was not handcuffed. When he emerged from the room, he was then handcuffed and taken away. At this time an FBI agent came up to the rest of the passengers and said the following (approximate quote) "You all are being moved to another area because this area is not safe. I am sure many of you saw what just happened (Referring to the man in orange) and are smart enough to read between the lines and figure it out." We were then marched out of the baggage claim area and into a long hallway. This entire time period and until we left customs, no person that wasn't a law enforcement personnel or a passenger on our flight was allowed anywhere on our floor of the terminal (or possibly the entire terminal) The FBI was so concerned during this time, that we were not allowed to use the bathroom unless we went alone with an FBI agent, we were not allowed to eat or drink, or text or call anyone. I have been repeating this same story over the last 5 days. The FBI has, since we landed, insisted that only one man was arrested for the airliner attack (contradicting my account). However, several of my fellow passengers have come over the past few days, backed up my claim, and put pressure on FBI/Customs to tell the truth. Early today, I heard from two different reporters that a federal agency (FBI or Customs) was now admitting that another man has been held (and will be held indefinitely) since our flight landed for "immigration reasons." Notice that this man was "being held" and not "arrested", which was a cute semantic ploy by the FBI to stretch the truth and not lie.

Today, according to the Examiner , the government has done an about face and admitted his report was accurate:

When two Taylor attorneys originally told their story about how another man was arrested during the foiled terrorist attempt on Christmas Day in Detroit, officials denied their story.

This afternoon the story has changed. Ronald G. Smith, chief U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in the Detroit area, sent an email apologizing that the information on the passenger -- which was reported to federal investigators by the pair, who were passengers on the flight -- was not made available earlier.

Federal officials had denied the details of the incident despite repeated accounts by attorneys Kurt and Lori Haskell of Taylor who say they saw a man get questioned by federal officials and later led away in handcuffs after a sniffing dog reacted to something in the man's carry on luggage in the airport's baggage area.

The government insists that the man arrested was from another flight and was arrested on an immigration matter, not the Flight 253 incident.We'll see. The credibility of the Customs and DHS officials at the moment is not high.Mrs. Haskell still questions this account.

I walked off the plane with the individual," who was later arrested, Lori Haskell said. "He was standing around 15 to 20 feet away from us ... the entire time."

She said federal officials had cleared the baggage area so passengers from Flight 253 would not mingle with passengers from other flights before they were questioned by the FBI.

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