Military jets scrambled as smoker in toilet sparks bomb scare

AN envoy from Qatar who authorities said had a sneaky smoke in a jetliner’s toilet and then joked about igniting his shoe, sparking a bomb scare and the scrambling of military jets, has been released from custody.

No explosives were found on the Washington-to-Denver flight.

Authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they don’t think the envoy was trying to hurt anyone during Wednesday’s scare and he will not be criminally charged.

Qatar’s US ambassador, Ali Bin Fahad Al-Hajri, cautioned against a rush to judgment.

“This diplomat was travelling to Denver on official embassy business on my instructions, and he was certainly not engaged in any threatening activity,” he said in a statement on his Washington embassy’s website. “The facts will reveal that this was a mistake.”

Brown Lloyd James, a law firm representing the Qatar embassy, said yesterday that the diplomat, Mohammed Al-Madadi, had been released by authorities after questioning and was on his way back to Washington. The firm said Al-Madadi is the embassy’s third secretary.

The scare came three months after the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day when a Nigerian man tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.

Since then, law enforcement, flight crews and passengers have been on high alert for suspicious activity on airplanes. The scare exposed major holes in the country’s national security and prompted immediate changes in terror-screening policies.

Two law enforcement officials said investigators were told the man was asked about the smell of smoke in the bathroom and he made a joke that he had been trying to light his shoes – an apparent reference to the 2001 so-called “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.

Officials said air marshals aboard the flight restrained the man and he was questioned. The plane landed safely as military jets were scrambled.

The envoy was interviewed for several hours, but authorities declined to provide any details about him or his status.

The latest edition of the registry of foreign diplomats working in the United States identifies a man named Mohammed Yaaqob Y.M. Al-Madadi as the third secretary for the Qatari Embassy in Washington. The position is a relatively low-ranking one at any diplomatic post and it was not immediately clear what his responsibilities would be.

A senior state department official said there would be “consequences, diplomatic and otherwise” if he had committed a crime.

Foreign diplomats have broad immunity from prosecution.

The official said if the man’s identity as a Qatari diplomat was confirmed and if it was found that he may have committed a crime, US authorities would have to decide whether to ask Qatar to waive his diplomatic immunity so he could be charged and tried.

Qatar could decline, the official said, and the man would likely be expelled from the United States.

The Boeing 757 was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members, United Airlines spokesman Michael Trevino said.

Dave Klaversma, 55, of Parker, Colorado, said his wife, Laura, was sitting behind the man in the first-class section of the plane.

She said she saw him go into the bathroom and that moments later he said something to the flight crew. After that, two US marshals in first class apprehended the man and sat next to him for the remainder of the flight.

Klaversma said his wife told him it all happened very quietly and that “there was no hysteria, no struggle, nothing.”