Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell claims FBI cover-up

Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI'

Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday.

Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam.

[edit on 31-12-2009 by loam]

Here is what he posted:

"Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans. Let me explain.

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.

Just a question, could that mean that the man in orange had no passport?

However, a few hours later, Customs changed its story again. This time, Mr. Ron Smith of Customs, says the man that was detained "had been taken into custody, but today tells the news the person was a passenger on a different flight." Mr. Ron Smith, you are playing the American public for a fool. Lets take a look at how plausible this story is (After you've already changed it twice). For the story to be true, you have to believe, that:

1. FBI/Customs let passengers from another flight co-mingle with the passengers of flight 253 while the most important investigation in 8 years was pending. I have already stated that not one person who wasn't a passenger or law enforcement personnal was in our area the entire time we were detained by Customs.
2. FBI/Customs while detaining the flight 253 passengers in perhaps the most important investigation since the last terrorist attack, and despite not letting any flight 253 passenger drink, eat, make a call, or use the bathroom, let those of other flights trample through the area and possibly contaminate evidence.
3. You have to believe the above (1 and 2) despite the fact that no flights during this time allowed passengers to exit off of the planes at all and were detained on the runway during at least the first hour of our detention period.
4. You have to believe that the man that stood 20 feet from me since we entered customs came from a mysterious plane that never landed, let its passengers off the plane and let this man sneak into our passenger group despite having extremely tight security at this time (i.e. no drinking even).
5. FBI/Customs was hauling mysterious passengers from other flights through the area we were being held to possibly comtaminate evidence and allow discussions with suspects on Flight 253 or to possibly allow the exchange of bombs, weapons or other devices between the mysterious passengers from other flights and those on flight 253.

Seriously Mr. Ron Smith, how stupid do you think the American public is?

Mr. Ron Smith's third version of the story is an absolute inplausible joke. I encourage you, Mr. Ron Smith, to debate me anytime, anywhere, and anyplace in public to let the American people see who is credible and who is not.

I ask, isn't this the more plausible story:

1. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they left flight 253 passengers on a flight with a live bomb on the runway for 20 minutes.
2. Customs/FBI realized that they screwed up and don't want to admit that they left flight 253 passengers in customs for 1 hour with a live bomb in a carry on bag.
3. Customs/FBI realize that the man in orange points to a greater involvement then the lone wolf theory that they have been promoting.

Mr. Ron Smith I encourage you to come out of your cubicle and come up with a more plausible version number 4 of your story."

Haskell continued his comment in a different post on MLive.
"For the last five days I have been reporting my story of the so called "sharp dressed man." For those of you who haven't read my account, it involves a sharp dressed "Indian man" attempting to talk a ticket agent into letting a supposed "Sudanese refugee" (The terrorist) onto flight 253 without a passport. I have never had any idea how it played out except to note that the so called "Sudanese reefugee" later boarded my flight and attempted to blow it up and kill me. At no time did my story involve, or even find important whether the terrorist actually had a passport. The importance of my story was and always will be, the attempt with an accomplice (apparently succesful) of a terrorist with all sorts of prior terrorist warning signs to skirt the normal passport boarding procedures in Amsterdam. By the way, Amsterdam security did come out the other day and admit that the terrorist did not have to "Go through normal passport checking procedures".

Amsterdam security, please define to the American public "Normal passport boarding procedures".

You see the FBI would have the American public believe that what was important was whether the terrorist in fact had a passport.

Seriously think about this people. You have a suicide bomber who had recently been to Yemen to but a bomb, whose father had reported him as a terrorist, who supposedly was on some kind of U.S. terror watchlist, and most likely knew the U.S. was aware of these red flags. Yet, he didn't go through "Normal passport checking procedures." What does that mean? Maybe that he flashed a passport to some sort of sympathetic security manager in a backroom to avoid a closer look at the terrorist's "red flags"? What is important is that the terrorist avoided using normal passport checking procedures (apparently successfully) in order to avoid a closer look into his red flags. Who cares if he had a passport. The important thing is that he didn't want to show it and somehow avoided a closer inspection and "normal passport checking procedures." Each passport comes with a bar code on it that can be scanned to provide a wealth of information about the individual. I would bet that the passport checking procedures for the terrorist did not include a bar code scan of his passport (which could have revealed damning information about the terrorist).

Please note that there is a very easy way to verify the veracity of my prior "sharp dressed man" account. Dutch police have admitted that they have reviewed the video of the "sharp dressed man" that I referenced. Note that it has not been released anywhere, You see, if my eye witness account is false, it could easily be proven by releasing the video. However, the proof of my eyewitness account would also be verified if I am telling the truth and I am. There is a reason we have only heard of the video and not seen it. dutch authorities, "RELEASE THE VIDEO!" This is the most important video in 8 years and may be all of two minutes long. Show the entire video and "DO NOT EDIT IT"! The American public deserves its own chance to attempt to identify the "sharp dressed man". I have no doubt that if the video indicated that my account was wrong, that the video would have already swept over the entire world wide web.

Instead of the video, we get a statment that the video has been viewed and that the terrorist had a passport. Each of these statements made by the FBI is a self serving play on semantics and each misses the importance of my prior "sharp dressed man" account. The importance being that the man "Tried to board the plane with an accomplice and without a passort". The other significance is that only the airport security video can verify my eyewitness account and that it is not being released.

Who has the agenda here and who doesn't? Think about that for a minute."

[edit on 31-12-2009 by loam]

reply to post by loam


Excellent post. I have been on the edge of my seat for days watching this play itself out. It just gets more and more revealing, and probably soon, we will be welcoming Mr. Haskell to ATS.

He makes a very valid, well thought out post there.

S/F!

loam - do you believe that the Sharp Dressed Man is in bed with the US and assisted with an attempted False Flag.....or that the Feds are covering up his existence (as well as the Man In Orange) so as not to expose how LAME our security system is?

Wow. This was an eye-opening thread.

forgive the ignorance, but can you explain what you mean by 'false flag?" I'm not familiar with this term.

I'll be emailing this source to some friends.....thanks for bringing it to our attention!

reply to post by Signals


I don't know who he was...

Part of me wonders whether the real conspiracy is that for people who come from essentially failed nation states, it is routinely acceptable for them to fly without documentation. Maybe that is the industries dirty little secret that everyone is bending over backwards to hide.

Whatever it is, it is clear that the Feds don't really want us to know...

Sure he was in bed with the USA for a little issue on that day.

Its so freaking obvious its INSULTING.

Alex Jones interviewed him too

This charade is getting real old.

reply to post by loam


Someone (his guide) FILMED the boogieman throughout the entire flight also. Strange, you think?

It looks like Alex Jones has managed an interview with Haskell:

Part 1 of 3


Part 2 of 3


Part 3 of 3


[edit on 1-1-2010 by loam]

This is downright bizarre. Not even so much that it happened, but rather the attempts to conceal the details. We are so NOT safe. These are keystone cops antics. So any terrorist can get on a plane in any non-secure country in the world and fly right into the states, with a plane in flames, if they manage to carry forth their plan. No sky marshall, or whatever they are called. Nothing but a brave passenger, Jasper Schuringa, I believe, from the Netherlands.

You would think they would have figured this out by now. What good does it do to put American passengers through hell to get on a plane, then permit other countries to let them board without a simple passport? Will we indeed need to staff the airports of these countries to protect our own?

I hope Mr. Haskell and his wife remain vocal about their experiences.
This story needs to be unraveled, and quickly. We deserve an explanation.....but I wonder if we'll get one.

Further info from the Haskell blog .. Looks like the FBI are lying there arses off ..

-------------------------------------------------------------

Version 5: I was pretty shocked to see version 5 come out this morning in The Detroit News. It seems that Mr. Smith works really hard at this. Of course it would be much easier to just put out one correct story.

www.detnews.com...

This is my second favorite version besides version 3. Now Mr. Smith claims the following:

1. “My account is a composite of two events at the airport around the time passengers got off flight 253. Both events were unrelated to the suspected terrorist incident.” One of these events involved a passenger from flight 249. Come on Mr. Smith, we both know that our flight was completely “quarantined”. Please see above for a further explanation.

2. “A sniffer dog reacted to agriculture or food products inside the bag of a third man who was off yet another flight”. OK, passengers from other flights DID NOT COMINGLE WITH OUR FLIGHT!

Funnier yet, Mr. Smith is proposing that a dog sniffing for food from another flight was the same as the dog sniffing for a bomb in the carry on bag carried by the orange dressed man on flight 253, who stood 20 feet away from me the entire time until he was taken away. Oh boy is that ever a stretch.

3. “Officials did attempt to segregate flight 253 passengers but the entire baggage area was not cleared”.

Think about this one for a minute. You have the biggest crime scene in 8 years. You don’t know if there are further bombs. Federal law enforcement is involved. You don’t know if there are accomplices. You need to find evidence Yet Mr. Smith proposes that law enforcement was unable to segregate the passengers of Flight 253 and let others trample through our “quarantine area”. Mr. Smith you should become a comedian.

Please answer a few questions for me Mr. Smith before I accept the apology you have yet to give to the passengers of flight 253:

1. Why were the passengers of flight 253 detained on a plane for 20 minutes not knowing if there was another bomb on the plane, in the cargo hold, or on another passenger after the “terrorist” had admitted that he had an explosive device in his pocket to a flight attendant, tried to detonate it, and set our plane on fire? Was it gross incompetence or something else?

2. Why were the passengers of flight 253 taken WITH their carry on bags and held with them for one hour before bomb sniffing dogs arrived in the baggage claim area of the terminal, all the while not knowing if any of the bags contained a bomb? Was it gross incompetence or something else? Did law enforcement intentionally risk the ENITRE AIRPORT TERMINAL TO AN EXPLOSIVE DEVICE or was it something else?

3. Why did you indicate to a well respected reporter that our carry on bags were searched ON THE PLANE, when in fact they were never searched (except for sniffer dogs), until she told you that my wife and I adamantly disputed your claim? Then you suddenly changed the official position to, yes, the carry on bags were not searched? (This was relayed to me in confidence)

Mr. Smith, I think if you honestly answer the few questions above, we will have our answer as to why the “official” position regarding the man in orange has changed 5 times. I suspect that all of the above is tied in together. Draw your own conclusion.

By the way, I look forward to version six of the official story.

I am not going away.

"Upon seeing the flames people started screaming "Fire!!" and "Water! Water!"
and... "Terrorist!"..."
Really?? The first thing on anybody's lips upon seeing fire flair up even in an airplane is "Terrorist!"???!! :bash:
Sounds like someone trying to set the "stage" if you ask me!

Wow. Thanks for the post. This is the first I've heard of the handler in Amsterdam getting this guy onboard as well as the arrest of another passenger and the video taper.

Alex Jones - goes up a notch for me too.

[edit on 2-1-2010 by verylowfrequency]

Originally posted by dgtempe
reply to post by loam

 

Someone (his guide) FILMED the boogieman throughout the entire flight also. Strange, you think?

Strange? Oh yes, it's beyond strange. What good is filming something if you are planning on blowing up yourself, the film-er, the camera and film, and a jet full of passengers. His apparent goal was to bring the plane down.

Could there have been a live-feed to a specific location? You know they have the recorder now. Wouldn't this be apparent?

This is pretty amazing, watching the Feds fumble their responses to Haskell:

U.S. Customs: Second person handcuffed on Christmas Day was on Flight 253, after all

A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection now says that a man who was handcuffed and questioned by authorities on Christmas Day was a passenger on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 -- just days after saying that person arrived to Detroit aboard a different flight.

In an email to The Detroit News Thursday night, Customs spokesman Ron Smith acknowledged that a person from Flight 253 was handcuffed after search dogs found something in his carry-on bag. Smith said the email -- which was also sent to attorneys Lori and Kurt Haskell -- was based on new information he had received.

The passenger was not arrested or detained, and was allowed to leave Detroit Metro Airport with the rest of the Flight 253 passengers, according to WWJ. The News said nothing was found in the man's bag.

The Haskells and at least two other Flight 253 passengers said they saw a man being handcuffed and taken away by authorities while they were waiting to be questioned by the FBI following Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attack on Flight 253. On Tuesday night, Smith told MLive.com that someone had been detained at Detroit Metro Airport following the incident on Flight 253, but could not say why the person was detained or whether the person would face charges.

In a subsequent interview with MLive.com on Wednesday, Smith said the man was aboard a separate flight and that he was questioned for reasons unrelated to Flight 253. He added that passengers from various flights went through customs processing in one centralized location.

...

I hadn't realized you could be handcuffed and neither be considered arrested nor detained.

If he was released as they say, I wonder why he isn't telling HIS story???



You couldn't make this stuff up!


[edit on 2-1-2010 by loam]

Thank you, LOAM for putting up the videos i tried but couldnt.

This is a False Flag, pure and simple. The propaganda and BS is so thick now, that it's nearly impossible to get to the bottom of any individual 'terror event'.

We've all been played the fool....again.

Obama's response:



Am I the only one who thinks his response is creepy?

To all who think this is a "false flag"...

Could you please expalin the logic in that deduction?

Seems what it did was embarrass the Obama administration. Didn't anyone see that pitbull Cheney on the blah-blah-talk-talk circuit???

Irony of ironies, one of the nutjob's assertions (Cheney...and I do think he's lost it, years ago) was that President Obama should hav immediately cancelled his vacation and hastened back to D.C.

Well, the former VP, "Dick", seems to have forgotten how his ole' buddy GWB reacted in December, 2001, to the Richard Reid "shoebomber" incident...

Yup! Good ole' GWB, on vacation out in Crawford, was in no hurry to interrupt his shrub clearing for any thing as insignificant as a failed airliner bombing incident.

Really, the GOP are making themselves look more foolish (if that was even possibly) every time they just gang up to bash...

But, a "false flag"???

Really, to think that ANYTHING that was actually ran as a "false flag" would be recognizable to a few internet "conspiracy" site posters is giving too much credit to those Google-sleuths.

(BTW....there are a LOT of real, actual, and verifiable threats and plots that are spoiled, behind the scenes, out of the public eye. Both by Bush, and now Obama).

MAYBE the true perps in this "false flag" are the GOP????? They wanna score on Obama???

reply to post by weedwhacker


I am inclined to believe the following:

Government officials routinely lie to the public in order to:

1) obscure the true extent of our unresolvable vulnerabilities;

2) obscure the true extent of government's otherwise profound disorganization and incompetence in dealing with resolvable vulnerabilities; or

3) obscure the true extent to which criminal elements have infiltrated the government, hiding the fact of a long term coop attempt that possibly spans years, if not decades...



Or, possibly a combination of all three.



[edit on 2-1-2010 by loam]