Apr

4

Bomb parts at US airport could have exploded: FBI

Filed Under Crime | Posted By Jennifer Sullivan | Leave a Comment

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The liquid packed in an Air Jamaica passenger’s suitcase could have resulted in a disastrous explosion if it had caught fire in mid-air, as per an FBI agent, on Thursday at a hearing for a man accused of trying to take bomb parts on a plane.

“If the suitable heat source was introduced, completely” the nitromethane could have bursted into flames, FBI agent Kelly Boaz confirmed at a hearing for Kevin Brown.

The 32-year-old Jamaican man was held at Orlando International Airport on Tuesday as he prepared to check his suitcases for a flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The FBI said the suitcase comprised of two galvanized pipes, end caps with holes pierced in them, two bottles of medication containing a model rocket igniter, air gun pellets, lighters, batteries, lighter fluid and two plastic vodka bottles of nitromethane, a liquid used as race car fuel and an industrial solvent.

Assistant US Public Defender Clarence Counts argued that the liquid and other bomb components were packaged separately, did not put the flight into danger.

“None of these items, your honor, were packed in such a way that they would blast,” Counts argued.

US Magistrate Karla Spaulding agreed to prosecutors and let stand the allegation against Brown.

Brown returned to the Seminole County Jail where he is being detained without bond as Counts, without clarification, ignored the planned bond hearing.

Afterward, Counts would only say he would rearrange a bond hearing for Brown “if circumstances alter.”

Brown was stopped at the airport by officers who stated he acted doubtfully while getting his bags checked. He variously told Boaz that he intended to blast a tree stump on his cousin’s land in Jamaica, and that he wanted to prove to his friends the kind of spontaneous explosive device he had noticed while serving in Iraq.

Newspaper reports stated Brown was a US Army veteran who had served a military contractor in Iraq last year and who had struggled with depression since the assassination of his mother in 2005. His lawyer refused to comment.



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