Passenger offers second pre-boarding account Detroit News, The (MI) - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 Author: Paul Egan By Paul Egan The Detroit News A passenger on the Christmas Day flight that was targeted in a terrorist attack says the man a fellow passenger saw attempting to board the flight without a passport may have been a Sudanese refugee, not the accused bomber. Beau Taylor of Jackson, an international development consultant who was aboard the flight from Amsterdam, said he saw a young man being accompanied on the airplane by a flight attendant. The young man resembled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with using chemicals hidden in his underwear to try to blow up Northwest Flight 253, Taylor said. Kurt Haskell, a Taylor attorney who also was aboard the flight, said he witnessed an incident near the boarding gate in Amsterdam in which a well-dressed man appeared to be negotiating with airline officials to get Abdulmutallab aboard the flight without a passport. The man appeared to be trying to pass Abdulmutallab off to airline officials as a Sudanese refugee, Haskell said. But officials in Nigeria have said Abdulmutallab had a valid Nigerian passport with a multi-entry U.S. visa when he began his journey in Lagos on Christmas Eve. Agents confiscated both documents after Abdulmutallab arrived in Detroit, a person familiar with the investigation said. Taylor said Haskell may have mistaken the minor he saw on the airplane for Abdulmutallab. The well-dressed man was likely an airline employee and the minor may have actually been a Sudanese refugee without a passport, Taylor said. Airline officials could not confirm Monday whether an unaccompanied minor or a refugee without a passport was aboard the flight. Haskell said it's possible the scenario described by Taylor explains what he witnessed and overheard in Amsterdam but he is unconvinced and remains fairly certain about his version of events. Haskell noted there had been foreign media reports in which Dutch military police said they planned to review security videos from the boarding gate area to check the veracity of his account. "Put the video out there to prove I'm wrong," Haskell said. Federal officials for several days denied accounts by Haskell and his wife, Lori, also an attorney, that they had seen a second man from their flight led away in handcuffs at Detroit Metro after a dog reacted to something inside the man's bag. But late Friday, Ron Smith, the chief U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer for Detroit, confirmed that the incident did happen and apologized for not correcting the information earlier. He said the man from Flight 253, who was handcuffed, later was released without charges. pegan@detnews.com Nathan Hurst contributed. Edition: 1-dot Section: Metro Page: 12A Record Number: det57279205 (c) 2010, The Detroit News. All rights reserved.