Police grills suspect after shoes trigger airport alert

KARACHI (AFP) - Pakistani police were questioning a man arrested at Karachi airport trying to board a plane for the Middle East with batteries and an electrical circuit found in his shoes.

by Hasan Mansoor

Pakistani civil engineer Faiz Mohammad talks to the media at the Airport Security Force (ASF) lockup in Karachi. Pakistani police were on Monday interrogating Mohammad, who was arrested at Karachi airport as he tried to board a plane for the Middle East with batteries and an electrical circuit hidden in his shoes.

The 30-year-old civil engineer, who was detained Sunday when a scanner sounded an alarm as he proceeded towards boarding a Thai Airways flight to Muscat, allegedly told police that his footware was an inbuilt massage system.

The bearded man was not carrying explosives.

He was named as Faiz Mohammad and allegedly told interrogators that while he lived in Karachi, he came from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Taliban and Islamist militants have a presence.

Airport Security Force spokesman Mohammad Munir termed as "worrying" the discovery of four batteries, a circuit and an on-off button secreted in his shoes, which he said could easily have triggered a bomb.

"The devices found from the suspect suggested that if he was carryingexplosive material, he could have easily blown the explosives up in the plane," said Munir.

Strict security arrangements are in place and flights now operating normally from Karachi, which is Pakistan's busiest international hub, Munir said.

Karachi's chief police investigator Niaz Khoso said the man described his shoes as an inbuilt vibrating foot-massager, brands of which are available on the market, and said no charges had yet been brought.

"Our experts are checking the shoes, and local manufacturers and dealers of massage shoes are being engaged to ascertain Mohammad's claim," Khoso said.

"Officials from the police and intelligence agencies are questioning the man and a decision will be made after a thorough investigation is completed.

"So far we have not not framed any charges of terror activity against him," the police investigator said.

The man allegedly told investigators that he was travelling to Muscat, where he had worked for a construction company, to set up his own business.

Pakistan suffers from chronic violence at the hands of Islamist militants. Bomb attacks across the country have killed 3,300 people since July 2007.

A British man, Richard Reid, tried to blow up a transatlantic jet in December 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Last week, US agents arrested a Pakistani-American man, Faisal Shahzad, for allegedly attempting to blow up a car bomb in New York.

The United States has accused the Pakistani Taliban of being behind the plot to detonate a car bomb inTimes Square on May 1 and has ratcheted up pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist havens along the Afghan border.

General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has reportedly urged Pakistan's army chief to launch an operation in the tribal district of North Waziristan, an Al-Qaeda and Taliban stronghold.

Shahzad, who was arrested in New York on Monday last week on board a plane as it was about to take off forDubai, has reportedly told investigators he was trained in bomb-making in Waziristan.