The terrorism case of Rajib Karim, a 30-year-old British Airways call center employee, took a radical turn last week when a British court learned Karim volunteered to work as a member of a British Airways crew during an upcoming crew strike. Karim’s ultimate goal, the court learned, was to become a suicide bomber. He sought out a job with the airline so that he could gather information useful to his terrorist handlers in Yemen.We've been doing stories about this danger for years—see Glory in the Name of Briton, about a "Briton" who worked in the duty-free shop at Heathrow, and Who’s Afraid Of 9/11? Illegal Aliens Still Get Sensitive U.S. Jobs, by Rob Sanchez.Prosecutor Colin Gibbs provided more details. While working at the call center designing software for British Airways, Rajib Karim had also been working with foreign jihadists in Yemen, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, giving and receiving support and ”advice.” As a British Airways employee, he had learned otherwise inaccessible cabin crew protocols after the airline made this sensitive information available to employees who’d volunteered to pick up extra jobs during the strike. ”There is no way this individual would have been considered for cabin crew work because he did not meet the criteria,” a British Airways spokesman told the Times of London in response to explosive details in the British press. But the fact that Karim had access to information he was able to relay to his overseas handlers could not be denied by British Airways. This included how to beat airport security, how baggage and body scanners worked, and how British Airways crew conducted certain tasks.
Terror Suspects Had Jobs at British Airways and … U.S. Nuclear Facilities
What did Sharif Mobley tell his terrorist handlers about our security protocols?, by Annie Jacobsen, PajamasMedia, March 14, 2010
