Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said Thursday his state was talking with Italian authorities about the mystery of an Egyptian-born man found inside a ship container in an Italian port with a Canadian passport a computer, cameras and cellular phones, reported the Canada Star.
Rizk Amid Farid, 43, was arrested on international terrorism charges in what apparently is Italy's first use of a new anti-terrorism law.
Farid, who police said had smuggled himself halfway around the world from Egypt to Italy, was arrested last week and the story is just now coming to light, said the report.
Police, anti-terrorism investigators and prosecutors held a news conference in the southern Calabrian city of Palmi and described the case as puzzling.
"He was in possession of documents and apparatus that no ordinary clandestine immigrant would have been able to afford," the Italian news agency AGI quoted Prosecutor Roberto Di Palma as saying.
The ANSA news agency quoted Farid's lawyer as saying Farid had successfully completed an airplane motor mechanic's course several years ago in Canada. His lawyer said he was from Montreal and had Canadian citizenship.
The Times of London reported Farid had airport security passes for Canada, Egypt and Thailand. He also had a return airline ticket for Montreal.
Outside the Commons, Manley said he knew of no plot to use Canada as a terrorist staging area, as some reports have suggested.
First reports said Farid was on international police lists of suspects wanted for terrorism, but an Interpol official told AP in Rome that the suspect's name wasn't on any wanted list, according to the report.
A number of Egyptians are alleged to have carried out or planned the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US.
Mohammad Ata is said to be the Egyptian pilot who flew a hijacked plane to into the World Trade Center in New York -Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
