Suspected Terrorist Omar Hayssam Might Have Fled Romania via a Freight Boat

Romania’s minister of interior Vasile Blaga Friday was the first to admit that suspected terrorist Omar Hayssam might have fled Romania. He did not address the responsibility staying with the border police for such an event.

Acting prosecutor general Ilie Botos launched an investigation into the circumstances allowing Hayssam to leave Romania without the authorities’ knowledge.

Hayssam was arrested April last year on economic charges, and in October was indicted for his alleged masterminding of the kidnapping operation of three Romanian journalists in Iraq. In April this year the court released Hayssam from prison after he presented a medical report showing he was terminally ill.

Rumors have it that Hayssam boarded July 12, at Midia Black Sea port, a freight boat transporting young rams to the Middle East.

Customs experts say ram transports had been used before by Arab residents in Romania to smuggle cigarettes, arms and other merchandise.

The Midia port is specialized in operating transports of live animals since communist times, having large areas for inspections of animals and fodder.

Hayssam himself operated ram exports to his homeland Syria and other countries in the Middle East; therefore he must have been informed on customs and guarding procedures in the port and maybe forged the kind of personal relationships which might have enabled him to flee Romania.

Sources said illegal boarding of people usually takes place shortly before the ship leaves port.

Hayssam kept secret his intentions to his own family and launched rumors that he checked into a sanatorium in Romania’s mountain region.

Ironically, on the very day Hayssam allegedly fled the country, President Traian Basescu attended the meeting the intelligence services were presenting their annual report in.

The ship Al Mahmoud 4, which suspected terrorist Omar Hayssam boarded to flee Romania

The ship believed to have carried Hayssam out of Romania might have been Al Mahmoud 4, serviced by a crew of 10 Syrians, five Egyptians and one Romanian. It entered Midia port on July 11, and on July 13 left for Syria with rams on board.

Al Mahmoud 4 ship should get back to Romania’s Constanta port for a new freight transport. The ship belongs to Humber Princess Shipping Ltd. Limassol, and was built in 1967.

This time physician Constantin Tanasescu of the Rahova Penitentiary, who issued a medical exam paper stating Hayssam was terminally ill, with metastasis cancer, is being investigated by the disciplinary committee at the penitentiary.

Hayssam used that exam paper in court, which subsequently released him from prison on medical grounds.

Marius Stef, deputy head of the Rahova Penitentiary, Friday said that Tanasescu issued on April 25 the papers to Hayssam, with no consent from the Penitentiary management. He added investigation on Tanasescu had not been completed as the latter left on vacation since July 17.

Mircea Beuran, the physician who treated Omar Hayssam for cancer, said latest biopsies did not identify tumor cells

Physician Mircea Beuran, of the Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, said Friday he did not identify at the latest June biopsy analysis any cancer cells in Hayssam.

Belatedly, Romanian police is overzealous in its efforts to track Hayssam in Romania, 48 hours after the court issued an arrest warrant on his name for failure to appear in court.

Riot police and police with the transportation department scour passenger and freight trains leaving Romania, Hayssam’s picture in hand.

Border police also check cars in Romania’s port areas and ships which sail in and out of them.

Translated by Anca Paduraru