Man sneaks out of Saudi airport in disguise

An Egyptian man involved in a rift with his Saudi employer donned a local dress and disguised as a worker at the airport restaurant to beat all security and customs systems and board a flight to Cairo without having a passport.

Mohammed Ibrahim Al Kannawi travelled out of Riyadh airport on Wednesday morning and arrived in Cairo later although he had only his identity card.

Quoted by the Egyptian daily Alyoum Al Sabei, Kannawi said he resorted to that trick after his employer refused to hand back his passport following a rift, adding that he was afraid of prosecution in the Gulf Kingdom.

Kannawi said he was helped by a friend who works at the restaurant inside King Khaled Airport in Riyadh as he borrowed the customs ID from that worker.

He then wore a Saudi dishdasha and sneaked through the restaurant towards the waiting lounge, where he booked a flight electronically.

“Kannawi said he then boarded the flight which was departing for Cairo without any problems…..at Cairo airport, he produced his ID and told the authorities at the airport what happened in Saudi Arabia,” the paper said.

According to the Saudi Arabic language daily Sabq, it was the first time that an expatriate used such a method to beat airport systems and sneak out of the Kingdom, the largest Arab economy where eight million foreigners live.