Farouk Mutallab in the school of Yusuf (AS)
I was next and when I placed my handbag in the screening tube I waited to see whether he will ask me to also bare my head before walking through the security post, but he didn’t even look my way. Instead a Black possibly African security woman beckoned me to walk through the door. After […]
I was next and when I placed my handbag in the screening tube I waited to see whether he will ask me to also bare my head before walking through the security post, but he didn’t even look my way. Instead a Black possibly African security woman beckoned me to walk through the door. After she had electronically screened me with her hand-held appliance, she raised her hand to my head and began to pat and squeeze the head. You see I was attired in a three piece Atampa set, comprising a blouse, a long skirt and a head wrap, on top of which I had my matching veil. I can understand her squeezing my head in the hope that I was hiding some explosives because my heard cover was thick enough. But to ask my little daughters to remove their transparent head scarves for security reasons was carrying things too far. What could they possibly hide there?
Apparently more was to come. When the lady moved downwards to pat the rest of my body, she lingered rather uncomfortably over my bums, squeezing rather than patting and I almost asked ‘What is all this about?’ but was constrained by the fact that I didn’t know how to say that in French. Finally she certified me terror-free and I walked ahead once again muttering my usual curse at airport security checks ‘Allah Ya tsine wa George Bush’. It was not until I remembered that our destination was Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam that I realised what the bum-squeezing was all about. We were headed for the same airport Umar Farouk Mutallab reportedly beat all security checks to get on a plane with explosives in his underwear. Additionally we were Nigerians, obviously Muslim and one of us (namely me) at least had Umar as a middle name.
Again I found myself praying that some miracle will enable Farouk to be cleared of all terror charges against him, for I never believed that he had done what he was accused of doing on Delta Airlines Flight 253. You can imagine my excitement when I read only last Monday that Kurt Haskell, the passenger who saw Mutallab being put on a plane by another man, was going to be the only defence witness in the trial. Haskell made news soon after the alleged Christmas day terror attempt when he wrote his eye witness account of the incident. A practicing lawyer who was returning from a Safari holiday with his wife that eventful day, Mr Haskell had written that he was at a boarding gate when a well-dressed man brought a shabbily dressed Mutallab and asked whether he could put him on the plane without a passport. He explained that Farouk was a Somali refugee heading for United States and added that ‘we do this all the time’.
Since the incident, Haskell has become something of a government sceptic. He believes that Farouk is the unwilling tool in a conspiracy orchestrated by the US government. He has told journalists that he believed Farouk was carrying a fake bomb and was an unwitting dupe in a case of government entrapment. While expressing surprise that he had been called upon as the only defence witness, by Farouk’s court-appointed lawyer, he nevertheless pledged that he ‘will be up to the task.’
Kurt Haskell added that ‘I realize that some may not agree with me and may attempt to harm me. Nevertheless I will speak the truth and not be intimidated. I will do this for the common good of all citizens of United States.’ He also argued that Farouk’s outburst in which he shouted cliched rhetoric about the mujahideen, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida suggested that Farouk was being coached on how to behave and what to say. Haskell told Associated Press that Mutallab’s outbursts were in complete contradiction to how he behaved during the Flight 253 incident. ‘I saw him before boarding and he never said anything, I’ve seen him in court several times and I even saw him after he lit his fake bomb and his crotch was burning and he never makes a peep. This is totally out of character for him.’
In an interview on the Alex Jones show, Haskell pointed out that if Mutallab chooses to reveal all that he knew about the entire plot, it could be more damaging to the Obama administration than the Fast and Furious scandal and would undermine the whole foundation of the war on terror, the TSA grope downs and the body scans that were introduced in the aftermath of the event. Then as a parting shot Kurt Haskell said he knew that his involvement in the case and his assertions of government complicity will put his life in danger, and made it clear that he was not planning on committing suicide.
Yet, rather than the light at the end of the tunnel we had hoped for in the Mutallab affair, a dramatic twist of events turned our hopes upside down. Umar Farouk Mutallab appeared in court last Wednesday and pleaded guilty to everything connected with Christmas day 2009 attempted terrorism. To say this had taken the wind out of our sails is an understatement. How can Farouk Mutallab plead to a crime he consistently denied? This is the same guy who sacked his court-appointed lawyers because they were pressurising him to go for plea-bargaining, how can he now accept all charges when he wasn’t even ready to accept some of them? If Farouk Mutallab was ready to accept having committed his crime, why did he ask his lawyer Anthony Chambers to contact the only man questioning the official version of events to be his defence witness?
It doesn’t make sense. Nothing adds up. And even Chambers himself was baffled by Farouk’s decision to plead guilty. He argued that ‘No lawyer worth his weight in salt would agree. I thought the evidence was lacking … I don’t think there was damage to that plane.’ Whatever informs this guilty plea does not prove anything. Apart from the fact that someone put Farouk on that plane, claimed he was a Sudanese refugee and got him on board without a passport, there was also the mysterious issue of the man who subdued him on the plane. Why is the man’s identity hidden? Why isn’t he celebrated as a hero unless he was the same man who put him on the plane and also set him on fire?
Additionally, how was Farouk able to enter a courtroom exactly two weeks after the incident wearing a T-shirt, a trouser and tennis shoes? Wasn’t he the same guy who severely burned his bums when the so-called explosives detonated in his underwear? Obviously there are more questions than answers in Farouk Mutallab’s guilty plea. The only thing clear to me is that he is a victim of a bigger conspiracy than we thought. While he braces himself for a life-time or at least 20 years behind bars, sympathisers like me can only take solace in the fact that a lot of innocent men have ended up in prison through no fault of their own. So he should bear it with faith and patience.
Beginning with Prophet Yusuf who was unjustly jailed after his episode with the Egyptian society women of his day, to numerous Muslim scholars and theologians, history is replete with cases of virtuous people having their life’s trials in jail. Calling it the School of Yusuf (AS), Turkish writer Harun Yahya has explained, in his book of the same name that ‘Yusuf (AS) is the patron of prisoners and prison is a sort of school of Yusuf (Madrassah i Yusufiyya). Prophet Yusuf, known for his faith and good character, spent many years of his life in prison, despite his innocence. Despite this adversity he continued to teach Islam to fellow prisoners… throughout history believers who are imprisoned as a consequence of slander demonstrated that they will never compromise their morality, thus following the example set by Yusuf, AS.’
It is our hope than if ever Farouk Mutallab ends up in prison, he will emerge a worthy student of this school, and will survive it and come out a better a Muslim than when he went in. As for those who conspired to have him there, they will definitely meet with their retribution, sooner or later.