posted on July 4, 2002 01:11:47 AM new
MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. authorities arrested a stepson of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ( news -
web sites) in Miami on Wednesday on charges of entering the United States to attend a flight training
seminar without the proper visa, the FBI ( news - web sites) said.
Agents with a federal anti-terrorism task force arrested the suspect, Mohammed Saffi, at a Miami
hotel, FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.
Saffi, a flight engineer who lived in New Zealand, flew from New Zealand and entered the United
States in Los Angeles. He was under federal scrutiny as he made his way to Miami.
"He was coming here for flight engineer training," Orihuela said. But he lacked the student visa
required for foreign citizens to attend flight training schools in the United States, she said.
Saffi, born in 1966, was to be moved to an immigration detention center south of Miami pending
deportation proceedings, Orihuela said.
The FBI declined to say how investigators learned of his connection with Hussein and his
whereabouts.
Jim Goldman, an assistant director with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, told a Miami
television station that, "We find the circumstance to be somewhat disturbing."
Incredible. What utter disdain for all of our intelligence and security systems they must have..........or it's some kind of setup showboating by Ashcroft, who loves his face on camera.
posted on July 4, 2002 02:23:49 AM new
Since he lives in New Zealand - and this is how he makes his living and he is wanting engineer training not pilot training how about considering the possibility he just wanted the training to further his work?
You can't pick your relatives.
It doesn't even sound like he went to classes or enrolled - just attended a seminar about the classes. Really - should you need a visa to attend a sales pitch? Sounds like hysteria.
posted on July 4, 2002 04:05:08 AM new
I know. It sounds as though he'd possibly been scheduled for the seminar quite some time ago, and it never occurred to him that there might be a visa problem due to an updated form. You'd think that if the FBI knew his movements and may have known of the seminar schedule they could have just told him he to be sure to have the correct paperwork. No, they let him get here, arrest him, and we'll see if there isn't a fanfare, eh?
I'm mocking the hysteria that's bound to come of this. I had thought that that would be obvious from the capitalizations, at least.
posted on July 4, 2002 04:54:44 AM new
I'm sorry - It seemed out of character, but I was all groggy in the middle of the night and it is so hard to read subtleties in text even with 70 kinds of smilies.
posted on July 4, 2002 12:56:50 PM new
I think that this was OK to do. There is a wiser precaution against flight training for just anybody to take, espcially if you are on a student visa. I do not think that it was OK to arrest him for attempting to register in violation of the new regs - he should have just been denied. However, I do agree that tightening the rules on all visitors, that is, they are where they state that they will be, is a good idea. Now if only we could build those gulags in the Artic Circle to send illegals there to dig coal in deep mines for us . . .
