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SRI
LANKAN TAMIL BREACHES HEATHROW’S TIGHT SECURITY AND WILL BE PRODUCED
BEFORE A MAGISTRATE
By Walter Jayawardhana
Mystery surrounds
why the twenty seven year old Sri Lankan Tamil Ketheeswara Uthayakumar
has committed one of the worst security breaches at London’s main
Heathrow Airport.
He was scheduled to appear at Uxbridge Magistrate court in West London
to face a charge of aircraft endangerment after being arrested by police
near the Northern runway last Thursday.
The security breach came less than 24 hours before Queen Elizabeth the
Second declared open a 4.3 billion new terminal , named as terminal
5 for England’s busiest airport.
Eyewitnesses told Police that Ketheeswaran Udayakumar scaled the airport
fence before running across runway 27 in front of an Emirates Jet. Police
said they arrested him after he was surrounded by armed policemen .
According to eyewitness accounts the Police arrested him when he was
sprinting in to the path of a plane on a runway just after 2 p.m.
Since the Queen was to visit the airport to ceremonially open the newly
built runway in less than a day, the incident by the Sri Lankan Tamil
triggered a major security alert.
The man carrying a backpack allegedly climbed over a fence of Heathrow’s
Nothern runway, dumped the bag on the grass perimeter, and ran into
the path of an Emirates 777 Boeing jet. He was being held in custody
before being produced at Uxbridge magistrates court, police sources
said..
The incident immediately caused flight delays and cancellations. The
partial closing down of the Northern runway caused the flight delays
and cancellations.
The incident was the second time Heathrow’s security has been breached
during the last few weeks. A team of Green Peace agitators walked into
a runway last month climbed on to a Boeing 777 and unfurled a huge banner
protesting against the Airport expansion. Two days later a group called
Plane Stupid breached the security of the Westminister parliament, climbed
on to its roof and unfurled a huge banner for the same protest. But
both groups denied involvement in the Sri Lankan Tamil incident.
The bag he was carrying has been found to have contained only clothes.
London’s Metro newspaer said: “The ease with which he evaded
detection and scaled the 15 feet fence is deeply worrying for security
officials. One security insider said, What if he had been a suicide
bomber and had reached the plane? The consequences could have been catastrophic!”
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