Kurt Haskell says he witnessed a well-dressed man accompanying “underwear bomber” suspect Umar Abdulmutallab, trying to convince boarding agents to allow Abdulmutallab on board the plane, despite his not having a passport. Haskell recalls having his attention drawn to Abdulmutallab’s shabby dress.
The ticket agent told the well-dressed man that she would need to inform her manager of the situation, and the man in the suit responded, “He’s from Sudan. We do this all the time.” Haskell says the two men were escorted by the airline representative to another location.
After being interviewed by the FBI, Haskell and his wife says it was then they witnessed government agents taking two, not one, men into custody. A spokeswoman for the bureau’s Detroit field office has disputed Haskell’s story and claimed that Abdulmutallab was the only person arrested after the incident.
