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| Caribbean-Latin America | ||||
| UK terror suspect in Mexico is simply a tourist | ||||
| 2005-06-23 | ||||
MEXICO CITY, June 22 (Reuters) - A man arrested in Mexico and named as a key terrorism suspect with possible links to the Sept. 11 attackers, is in fact a tourist who poses no security risk, red-faced Mexican authorities said on Wednesday.
But Mexican law enforcement backed down on Wednesday, saying U.S. authorities had recently cleared Haykel from suspicion but forgotten to take his name off a terrorism suspect blacklist. "They forgot to deactivate the red alert," said a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
He said Haykel had raised suspicions when he crossed the border into the United States in May, but U.S. authorities soon found he had no apparent links to any terrorist group. Mexican immigration authorities, who had been questioning Haykel since his arrest, said they were authorizing his release. Haykel, who speaks four languages, had been in Mexico for a month as a tourist, and is now free to stay in the country for several weeks more on a tourist visa, the national migration institute said. "It has now been confirmed that he poses no threat to national security. The information we have does not place him as a risky person," the institute's chief spokesman, Hermenegildo Castro, said. Haykel's case is the latest false alarm of supposed terrorism suspects in Mexico or Central America, seen as a weak spot in the U.S. fight against terrorism. A security alert sparked in Nicaragua in May over the suspected presence of two al Qaeda operatives in Central America turned out to be a mistake. Often criticized by Washington for failing to halt border violence, Mexico announced triumphantly earlier on Wednesday that its arrest of Haykel in cooperation with U.S. authorities showed it was up to the task of securing the frontier. A few more details: Before his arrest, Haykel spent several days in the tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas, sleeping in a local fire station, according to those who met him. He told acquaintances he was a pilot who was wandering the world on a tight budget.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #4 If he really is a tourist and the Mexican authorities picked him up, they would've taken him to the ATM station to empty his checking account. I know of several tourists that this has happened to in Mexico. |
| Posted by: JDB 2005-06-23 10:56 |
| #3 If he really is a tourist and the Mexican authorities picked him up, they would've taken him to the ATM station to empty his checking account. I know of several tourists that this has happened to in Mexico. |
| Posted by: JDB 2005-06-23 10:56 |
| #2 If he really is a tourist and the Mexican authorities picked him up, they would've taken him to the ATM station to empty his checking account. I know of several tourists that this has happened to in Mexico. |
| Posted by: JDB 2005-06-23 10:56 |
| #1 If he really is a tourist and the Mexican authorities picked him up, they would've taken him to the ATM station to empty his checking account. I know of several tourists that this has happened to in Mexico. |
| Posted by: JDB 2005-06-23 10:56 |