Federal agents arrested and charged a Saudi Arabian who flew into Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport from Amsterdam with a pressure cooker and an altered passport.
Pressure cookers were used to make the bombs that killed three at the Boston Marathon on April 15. They’ve also been used to make explosive devices in militant attacks in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.
The suspect, Hussain Al Khawahir, 33, was charged on Monday with making a false statement and with purposely using an altered passport, Raw Story reported. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents became suspicious after noticing a passport page had been removed. They searched through his baggage and discovered the pressure cooker, Raw Story said.
The man initially said he was gifting the pressure cooker to his nephew, a student at the University of Toledo. But then he fumbled and changed his story, Raw Story reported, and “admitted his nephew had purchased a pressure cooker in America before but it ’was cheap’ and broke after the first use,” the criminal complaint read, as Raw Story reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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