U.S. 'deporting Saudi person of interest'

Obama has unscheduled meeting with foreign minister

An expert on terrorism says the Saudi national who was the original “person of interest” in connection with Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing is going to be deported from the U.S. next week.

The foreign student from Revere, Mass., is identified as 20-year-old Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi.
“I just learned from my own sources that he is now going to be deported on national security grounds next Tuesday, which is very unusual,” Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism told Sean Hannity of Fox News Wednesday night.

The Reuters news agency reported President Barack Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Wednesday, noting “the meeting was not on Obama’s public schedule.”

After that meeting was mentioned, Emerson told Hannity, “That’s very interesting because this is the way things are done with Saudi Arabia. You don’t arrest their citizens. You deport them, because they don’t want them to be embarrassed and that’s the way we appease them.”

Saudi national Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the original "person of interest" questioned in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Meanwhile, Tuesday morning, a meeting Secretary of State John Kerry held with the Saudi foreign minister was abruptly closed to press coverage.

“The State Department initially provided no reason for the change, which was announced just 15 minutes before the scheduled 10 a.m. session,” reported Politico.

But later in the day, department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the preclusion of news media from the meeting was due to Kerry’s busy schedule.

“This was just a scheduling change on our part,” Ventrell said.

Journalists found the claim hard to believe, as they had been told the meeting would include a so-called “camera spray” at the beginning of the session.

“Are you really trying to say that this [meeting was moved from a] camera/photo op to being closed, for scheduling reasons? Is that seriously your answer: that because the secretary was tired after 10 days on the road and is going to the Hill tomorrow?” Matt Lee of the Associated Press asked.
“What I’m saying is he has a very tight schedule here in the building and elsewhere,” Ventrell said, noting the fact Kerry met with Al-Faisal amidst that busy schedule reflects the importance of the U.S. Saudi-relationship.

“So does it save time somehow, canceling the photo op? It doesn’t wash,” Lee replied. “I find it hard to believe that you expect us to believe that that’s the real reason for this.”