Info 'insufficient' to revoke Nigerian's visa: US

The US state department has said the information provided by the father of a Nigerian man, who is charged with trying to blow up a US-bound flight on December 25, was "insufficient" to revoke the terror-suspect's visa or to put him on the no-fly list.

The father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, had gone to the American Embassy in Abuja on November 19 to express concerns about his son, state department spokesman Ian Kelly told journalists on Monday.

However, Kelly did not divulge any details of the concerns raised by Mutallab, an eminent Nigerian banker, about his son.

The Nigerian newspaper This Day said Mutallab had reported the suspected terrorist tendencies of his son to the US Embassy.

As per mandatory rule, the embassy relayed those concerns the following day in Visas Viper cable to the state department and the National Counterterrorism Centre, which coordinates intelligence among various government agencies, he said.

The cable was a very short characterisation of the father's concerns.

"The information in this Visas Viper cable was insufficient for this interagency review process to make a determination that this individual's visa should be revoked," Kelly said.

This information could have only popped up when the suspect would have applied for reissuing of his visa. This cable initiated an input into the database, he added.

The US Embassy in London issued a two-year multiple-entry visa to him on June 16, 2008.

"At the time that his visa was issued, there was nothing in his application nor in any database that would indicate that he should not receive a visa. He was a student at a very reputable school. He had plenty of financial resources, so he was not an intending immigrant.

"There was no derogatory information about him last year -- last June -- that would indicate that he shouldn't get a visa, so we issued the visa," Kelly said.

Following the December 25 incident and instructions passed by US President Barack Obama, the entire process is being reviewed, he said.

Though the authority to revoke visa lies with the state department, in the case of those involved with terrorist suspect it is mainly done at the instance of the National Counterterrorism Centre, he said.