Nigerian suspect listed in terror database based on father's inputs

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was added to the US terror data base -- Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) -- after his banker father informed the US Embassy in Nigeria about the radical views of his son.
Said to be a catch-all list into which all terrorist- related information is sent, the database has about 550,000 individuals' name.
However, his name was not on the 4,000 strong no-fly list of the Transportation Security Administration, as there was not sufficient information available on him so far.
The father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a former Chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria, said yesterday that he travelled from his home in northern Nigeria to Abuja to meet officials as he feared the man apprehended by FBI was his son.
Mutallab said his son, an engineering student left London to travel, though he did not know where he was heading. "I believe he might have been to Yemen, but we are investigating to determine that," he was quoted as saying by CBS news.
Meanwhile, Nigerian daily 'This Day' reported, quoting family members, that the father is shocked that his son was even allowed to fly to the US.

Abdulmutallab was not placed on any watch list for flights into the US because there was "insufficient derogatory information available" to include him, another administration official said, The Washington Post reported.
Abdulmutallab, 23, has been charged with "willfully" attempting to destroy the Amsterdam-Detroit Northwest Flight 253 and with placing a destructive device on the aircraft.
He was subdued and restrained by the passengers and flight crew soon after his failed attempt.
He was produced before a makeshift court in a Detroit hospital, where he is being treated for burn injuries. He was rolled into a conference room in a wheelchair for the hearing.
Asked whether he understood the charges against him, he replied: "Yes, I do". When a federal prosecutor asked how he was doing, Abdulmutallab replied, "I feel better".
Abdulmutallab, officials said, was issued a multiple entry two-year tourist visa by the US Embassy in London in July 2008. Since then he is reported to have travelled to the United States at least twice.
He did not raise any red flags during screening before boarding the flight at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of the most heavily secured air facilities in the world, a senior administration official said.
"We interviewed him, and his name was run against the watch list maintained by (the Department of Homeland Security) and the FBI," a official was quoted as saying by The Post.
"There was no indication of any derogatory information. There is every indication that whatever radicalisation took place occurred recently," the official said.