Karachi shoe-bomb suspect innocent


Afp May 11, 2010

KARACHI: The police, on Tuesday, released Faiz Mohammad, the man who was detained at Karachi airport for having batteries and an electrical circuit in his shoes.

Mohammad, a 30-year-old civil engineer, was held on Sunday when a scanner sounded an alarm as he proceeded towards boarding a Thai Airways flight to Muscat.

Mohammad, who not carrying any explosives, told police his footwear had an inbuilt massage system.

Police and intelligence agencies questioned him extensively before clearing him of trying to commit any terror activity in the plane, Karachi's chief police investigator Niaz Khoso said.

Police engaged “experts”

"The joint investigation team extensively questioned and in the end found him innocent," Khoso told AFP. "The man has been released," he said.

"We also engaged our experts and people in the market who confirmed that the shoes he was wearing were for massage comfort and easily available in the market," Khoso said.

He said that as it was the first such incident "it made all of us alarmed."

Karachi's Airport Security Force spokesman Mohammad Munir on Sunday called the discovery of four batteries, a circuit and an on-off button in Mohammad's shoes as "worrying".

"The problem was just that no passenger in the past had earlier been seen with such shoes," said Khoso.

COMMENTS (6)

Al Bundy | 13 years ago | Reply What makes these shoes so much more scarier than any other battery operated device? Any cell phone, mp3 player or laptop can be used as detonators. Of course this guy seems to be no Einstein, wearing something so special on a airport in such an uncivilized place, but still it is NOT ILLEGAL to be stupid, be carrying a battery operated device or having beard like a beehive.
GIbran Ashraf | 13 years ago | Reply Shows that the security systems work on our end - what about up there in the states??
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