Suspicious Behavior
According to some passengers and flight staff, a number of whom didn't identify themselves, the suspicious behavior of the imams included the following:
- The imams refused to sit in their assigned seats. Instead, it is claimed that they fanned out in the cabin, sitting in pairs close to the front, middle, and rear exit rows.
- Shahin and the two imams seated in Coach Row 9 requested seatbelt extensions (a strap with large metal buckles normally used by obese individuals to lengthen their seatbelts), even though flight staff say none seemed to need it. They then placed the extensions on the cabin floor in front of them, instead of attaching them to their seatbelts.
- Three of the imams traveled without any checked baggage, and on one-way tickets.
- According to a nearby passenger who spoke Arabic, the two imams sitting in the back of the plane, while speaking to each other in Arabic, mentioned Osama bin Laden and condemned America for "killing Saddam".
Shahin denied some of these observations in press reports (see "conflicting accounts" below).
Read more about this topic: Flying Imams Incident
Famous quotes containing the words suspicious and/or behavior:
“Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)