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That Idiot Qatari PNG'd, Has Days To Leave U.S. Forever
The Qatari diplomat who allegedly sneaked a smoke in an airliner bathroom, setting off a terrorism scare that forced F-16 fighter jets to scramble and delayed tired passengers for hours Wednesday night, will pay for his stunt with a one-way ticket home.U.S. officials said Mr. Madadi was expected to leave the U.S. in the next few days. Qatari officials were told by the State Department that the U.S. viewed the matter very seriously. Qatar's ambassador to the U.S. called the incident "a mistake," and said Mr. Madadi was traveling to Denver on official embassy business. There was confusion Thursday about just what that business was. Mr. Madadi initially told investigators he was going skiing with a friend. But later a State Department official said he was making a consular visit to Ali al Marri, a Qatari citizen imprisoned in Colorado as an alleged al Qaeda agent in the U.S. When he was free to leave Denver on Thursday, Mr. Madadi attempted to board another United flight to return to Washington, but United declined to let him fly and he booked with another carrier to Baltimore. A United spokeswoman said it declined service because "he violated FAA's rules and United's policy." It cost the U.S. government $15,000 to scramble the F-16 fighters after the North American Aerospace Defense Command responded to what it thought might be a terrorist incident. The 157 passengers and six crew on United Flight 663 endured up to five hours of frustration and exhaustion as federal authorities conducted their probe and screened luggage. Matt Erickson, a middle-school counselor who was returning from a week in Washington chaperoning 50 eighth graders on a spring-break trip, sent an instant message at 11:28 p.m. to his wife, Debbie Adams, who had been waiting for him in the airport for nearly five hours as authorities questioned passengers and Mr. Madadi. Mr. Erickson wrote: "Only in America--a Qatari diplomat decides to light up a cigarette in the bathroom and use his shoe bottom to put it out. He then jokes about it to the guy sitting next to him--who happens to be a freakin' air marshal. Now hundreds of people are inconvenienced, to say the least." Mr. Madadi is described by other diplomats as a man in his mid-20s who went to college in Washington, and as a fixture on the party scene in the city's affluent Georgetown section. On his profile on the LinkedIn social-networking site, Mr. Madadi listed his title as a database administrator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the embassy. He studied at George Washington University, where he earned his master's degree of science in information systems technology in 2008.
Posted by: 2010-04-10 |
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