Saddam's Stepson Faces Deportation

Saddam's Stepson Faces Deportation

NewsMax.com Wires
Saturday, July 6, 2002

MIAMI – Proceedings for the deportation of the stepson of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein began Friday.

Mohammed Nour Al-Bin Saffi was arrested Wednesday for a visa violation. A citizen of New Zealand, he remains in detention at an Immigration and Naturalization Service processing center.

"The individual is in removal proceedings, and they are moving forward, but it's impossible to tell when he will be deported," said spokesman Russ Bergeron of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "It could be anywhere from any minute to several days."

Friends and family in New Zealand said he admitted not having a visa, and would not oppose deportation.

Saffi was arrested at a hotel near Miami's international airport. INS officials said he entered the United States with tourist status, but tried to attend the AeroService Flight School without a student visa as required.

Federal officials said that there was no intelligence linking Saffi to terrorism and that his name was not on any list of suspected terrorists.

Fishy

Authorities said they learned he was heading to Miami from a tip from an FBI agent at a U.S. consulate in Canberra, Australia. They said red flags were raised because of his relationship to Hussein, his intention of training at an American flight school, his arrival the day before Independence Day and because his only other visit to the United States came four days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

Authorities said AeroService had one of the best reputations as a flight school for Boeing 727 jetliners. One of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Said Jarrah, trained at the school, but officials said there was no link between the terrorist and Saffi.

Saffi has worked for Air New Zealand as a mechanical engineer for years as well as working for a start-up South Pacific cargo service. He was training as a flight engineer and was planning to pay AeroService in Miami $7,000 for a four-day course.

Saffi's mother is Samira Shabandar, a former stewardess for Iraqi Airways. Reports, apparently spread by Hussein's enemies living in exile, said she was the Iraqi strongman's mistress in the 1980s and was forced to divorce her husband and marry Hussein in 1986. By then Saffi, 36, had already been born.

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