AIRPORT CHECK LEADS TO JAIL

AIRPORT CHECK LEADS TO JAIL | Frustration, desperation mount
In a jam in Dubai and baffled at home VIDEO
A “straight arrow” Harrisonville man is busted when a knife and possible drug residue are found in his bag.
By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH
The Kansas City Star

Tuesday morning, Danny Talbert walked through a scanner at Dubai International Airport for a flight to Kansas City.

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Guards cut deep into the bag and brought out an open pocket knife with a matchbox taped around the blade. Inside were two matches and a smear of a greenish substance on a piece of aluminum foil.

In the United Arab Emirates, the mandatory penalty for possession of a trace of drugs is four years in prison.

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In the blur of days and nights since, Caldwell and Rives have heard details of Talbert’s ordeal in phone calls from the Dubai jail. They have spent hundreds, probably thousands of dollars calling the U.S. Embassy in Dubai and Talbert’s employer, Halliburton subsidiary KBR, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. They’ve called the company’s headquarters in Houston, Missouri politicians and the White House. Embassy officials in Dubai have spoken to Talbert by phone.

more . . .
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16667274.htm

“My brother is a straight arrow, not an idiot...Why would anyone try to board a plane with a knife, matches and drugs?...”

Your brother is also a Halliburton employee, which means, unfortunately, that anything is possible. Was he stopped from going home because he knows something he's not supposed to know, and might tell?

:scared:
rocknation

But I do feel sorry for his family.

around an open pocketknife? Certainly not this Lectroid. If it was a movie, the airport bust would be followed by a flashback to where his evil employer figured out that he had a CDROM containing evidence that would expose their evil schemes, and someone removed it from his bag in a daring bit of caperish skulduggery.

He's either very stupid or was set up. Or maybe both.

It would be cool if this were some kinda 007 spy story where the guy was set up by a beautiful woman to silence him. But, really, he's a stranger in a strange land. If he was any kind of danger to these guys he would just "disappear". I am inclined to think that he tried something stupid and got caught. Maybe he thought he was above the law because he worked for Haliburton. He wouldn't be the first "squeaky clean" "straight arrow" with a dark secret.

and the guy never watched the movie "Midnight Express". Their is one born every minute

in the years between his 1999 high school graduation and going to Afghanistan a year ago. If he'd been set up by "enemy forces," Halliburton would be fighting for him tooth and nail, and his family wouldn't have to be making public appeals and scrounging for lawyers. I, too, think that he got involved in something over his head and had to be stopped from coming home.

:headbang:
rocknation

but I do know what some of these guys are capable of. If this guy was involved in something he ought not to have been, why would he be alowed to talk to his family? He could have passed his information over the phone, or at least clued them in to the true nature of his detention.It would be less risky, in my humble opinion, to just report that he was involved in a terrible "accident" and his remains aren't allowed to leave because of an "investigation". And then they dispose of him. No Muss, No Fuss, no one in UAE will give a damn about a missing American that worked for Haliburton. But, what the hell do I know? It's all specullation on my part. It will be interesting to see how this ends up over time. If he is set-up, he has my sympathy.

But you'd think Halliburton would be assisting the family just as a courtesy--this publicity certianly can't be good for them.

:headbang:
rocknation

...war contractor for a corrupt corporation has to land in jail. Instead of one of those dirty hashish smokers.