He was punished for flying while Muslim.
A UC Berkeley student, who is an Iraqi refugee, says he was booted from a Southwest Airlines flight after a passenger heard him speaking Arabic — and reported him as a possible safety threat.
“I was so afraid. I was so scared,” Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a political science and near Eastern languages student, told the Daily Californian.
“I don’t want money,” he added, saying he does not intend to file a lawsuit.
“I don’t care about that. All I want is an apology.”
Southwest has yet to offer one — but it did fess up to the flight fiasco.
Makhzoomi was supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland on April 6, expecting to get there in time for class. The day before, he attended the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.
Before the flight took off, Makhzoomi called his uncle and spoke in Arabic, he said. He signed off with “Inshallah” — a phrase meaning, “If God is willing.”
Makhzoomi said he noticed a female passenger staring at him when he hung up. She got up and spoke with someone on staff. Moments later, an airline employee removed Makhzoomi from the plane.
Makhzoomi said security and FBI officers searched and questioned him, at one point while dozens of onlookers stood watching. Authorities grilled him about his family and his travel plans, searched his genital area and asked if he was hiding a knife.
“That is when I couldn’t handle it and my eyes began to water,” Makhzoomi told the Daily Californian.
“The way they searched me and the dogs, the officers, people were watching me and the humiliation made me so afraid because it brought all of these memories back to me.”
Makhzoomi, 26, fled Iraq in 2002 after his father, who was an Iraqi diplomat, was killed under Saddam Hussein’s regime. His family was granted asylum in the United States.
Southwest said in a media statement it “decided to investigate potentially threatening comments made onboard our aircraft” and “made the decision to deny boarding to this customer.” The airline said it would share no further details about the incident to “respect the privacy of those involved.”
“We regret any less than positive experience onboard our aircraft,” Southwest said.
The airline gave him a refund and put him on another flight hours later.
The FBI acknowledged its involved but also declined details.
“We were asked to respond, and we determined no further action was necessary,” spokeswoman Ari DeKofsky told SFGate.
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