Suspected Terrorist!

I had my last ever Navs small group on Tuesday; which was sad but incredibly entertaining! Malik on of the guys in our group was talking about his travels and well it was all very exciting!

Malik is from Sir Lanka and is currently living and working in Christchurch finishing off his PhD in Biomedical Engineering. The fact that he is a young, intelligent, male with a muslim first name and arab looks (check out http://community.webshots.com/user/jayasri1 to see what I mean) caused his travel agent to warn him that travel in the states might be difficult and that he should expect to be stopped every time at check points.

Malik went prepared for this. He was not, however, prepared for what unfolded in San Francisco...

As he sat waiting for the plane to take off, Malik was staring out the plane window aimlessly, taking the odd digital photo of the planes as they reversed and prepared to take off when he suddenly saw a black FBI truck- just like the ones you see in the movies- drive up beside his plane! He was pretty excited and wondered what was going on. Minutes later the pilot made an announcement over the intercom; "Would Mr Malik Peris please exist the plane via the front doors", so a somewhat bewildered Malik made his way towards the front of his plane wondering if perhaps customs might have found something in his luggage.
As Malik descended the steps of the plane he was faced with five FBI agents each one pointing a gun at him!

He was interoggated and accused of being a terrorist since security camera's had recorded him taking photo's of the airport and making sketches! Unbelievable but completely true; Malik had handled it all very well however and seemed relatively unphased by the whole experience. I think what he most disappointed that he hadn't taken a photo of the FBI guys!