Britain Rejected Visa Renewal for Suspect

[lanejared]

Hi,
The British government said Monday that it rejected an application by the Nigerian man accused in the failed Detroit airliner bombing plot for a renewed student visa in May, and that he was placed on an official watch list to prevent him from re-entering Britain. In a BBC radio interview, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said he did not believe that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had acted alone in a plot investigators say could have brought down a Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit with more than 280 people aboard on Christmas Day.

 

[Dean Taylor]

Seems to me that the US and British (and others) should keep one common watch list. If they won't let them in, we don't either...and vice versa. But then again, that makes too much sense to government.

We better get proactive instead of being reactive or we are gonna get hit bigtime again!

 

[pitzerwm]

Just returning from SE Asia, I can tell you that security rituals are up, but the actual ability to find a real problem is no better in my opinion. Although, on the plane from Bangkok to Tokyo, 5 Japanese men and 1 woman, got on the plane drunk and a couple of them causing problems before take off (thankfully) the stewardesses couldn't get them to shut up and sit down, so the Purser was called. She was a tall thin black gal that looked like Whitney Houston. She listen to the issue, had a translator tell the main guy to shut up and sit down that he had 10 sec. She started counting, he didn't and they went up front. I was told that the Captain came out and one of them made some offensive motion toward the Captain. Security was already there, the Captain say "they were off". They were taken off, even the poor gal, that had not opened her mouth, all of their take on stuff and their checked baggage too. The whole thing only took about 10 minutes. I talked with the Purser and she said that thankfully they didn't have to take any **** anymore, not like the old days.

Bottom line is that the additional security IMO wouldn't find enough to make a bomb. In Dec. they were just lucky that he didn't know what he was doing. There was enough of a bomb to take out the plane. In Singapore and Tokyo, they x-ray everything immediately after you get off the plane even if you are just transferring even and if you are going back on another plane they do it again. Taking off shoes was not always done. In Vietnam they x-rayed but you didn't have to do shoes or computers etc.

 

[Dean Taylor]

I heard a comedian say shortly after the shoe bomber incident - "Now we all have to take off our shoes....I keep hoping they catch a Bra bomber"