Saturday, November 8, 2008

More detail on attempted child snatching from Muscat Airport from the child's mother

Readers,
I was forwarded the following email, originally from the mother of the child who was reportedly the subject of a suspicious attempted to abduct him recently at Muscat International Airport.

Perhaps just another sign of the times, perhaps. Fortunately, it sounds like the guy was an amateur, and he was totally unsuccessful. One would think there would be plenty of CCTV footage at the airport to ID him...

The email:
"Teresa V (Aussie Mum with triplet 3 year old boys) asked to circulate this account below. It is not an urban myth or a scare story. There were witnesses who agreed that she was not over-reacting and the airport police are taking the matter seriously. The startling thing is it happened at all and more so that according to the Australian Embassy it is the second incident involving children in Oman in the past few weeks. ..."

The mother's story:
On Thursday the 30th of October we were at Muscat International Airport waiting for a flight to arrive. Shortly after 1pm, two men dressed in Dishdashas, characteristic of the Emirates rather than Oman, approached my three small boys and played with them (pinched their cheeks etc). They then left into the crowd. We were seated in Costa Coffee arrivals and my sons were playing just in front of the seating area in full view.
A short time later one of the men returned and swiftly pushed one of my sons down a corridor adjacent to Costa. The corridor led to a door to the outside of the terminal. I immediately followed the man. When I caught up with the man, he let go of my son and walked quickly off without a word, towards the departures terminal. My son was quite shaken and clung to me and repeatedly said 'why did that man push me'. Two other men at Costa witnessed this and spoke to me and then went to look for the man who had pushed my son. Unfortunately they could not find him. The incident was reported to the police.

Please let me know if you would like any further details.
Many thanks for circulating this
Teresa

7 comments:

  1. Disgusting.

    I'm telling you, those royals have spies who scout out for young flesh for some handsome rewards.

    It's the khaleeji mentality. Just like you're not gay if you're the top; you're not a pedophile if it's not your sister's kid.

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  2. boxster! think sensibly stop pushing around every issue on gays and Muslims!
    It is a bad thing to happen and Oman is still very safe than many other places in this world. I am sure ROP will be more vigilant!
    Thanks for making us aware of this Undercover Dragon.

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  3. Bobby,

    Why so serious?

    Please revisit this blog's recent post titled: "No gays please - we're Bahrain and we're straight." Pay particular attention to the insightful comment by "The Ranter". He wrote from personal experience, observations that I can second, having lived in the region and actually interacted with the locals for many years.

    My comment might have been cynical, sarcastic; and an unfairly vast sweeping generalization. Muslim and gay bashing it was not.

    I have a young child too and I am every bit as sympathetic to the family above as any other parent.

    I am completely outraged by the actions of the perpetrators; but mostly furious over the inactions of the media and the authorities.

    I shall also assume that you, in the heat of passion, misunderstood my first comment and I accept your apology for the unwarranted, personal lash-out.

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  4. I am super spooked, for the record. what kind of asshole would do that?

    It's worth noting that there is no australian embassy in oman. I assume they meant the british embassy, who look after the ozzies and Kiwis in all matters local?

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  5. Paedophiles tend to work in much more devious ways than an open-air snatch like this one which fits more into the realms of a kidnap attempt.

    There are still a lot of grey areas in the events on the email so the above is mere speculation.

    The vanishing act at the end is synonymous with a waiting car.

    JD

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  6. Boxster
    Yeah, still a strange setting to try it I think.

    Bobby
    you're welcome. I think Boxster is reacting to the lack of publicity. Paedophilia is nothing to do with sexual orientation directly. There are far more heterosexual paedophiles than gay.

    Sub
    Yeah, the Brits act as the default for commonwealth allies like Aussie here. I also presume its an assumption on the part of the forwarder. The statement (see prev post) from the British Embassy website shows the story is kosher.

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  7. because someone pushed a child its classified as attempted child abduction?!

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If you wish to post anonymously, please pick a nickname by selecting the Name/URL option, or at least sign off your comment with one! I will delete comments I find objectionable or needlessly inflammatory. Sorry for the word verification.... OMG the spam has gotten BAD these past 12 months... trying to avoid making one log in...