By: Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
The Oregonian
A black SUV pulled up to Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah’s home in Southeast Portland two weeks before his June 2017 trial.
Noorah, a Saudi national charged the year before in the fatal hit-and-run of a teenage girl crossing Hawthorne Boulevard, had a bag packed that Saturday afternoon.
The private car drove the 21-year-old Portland Community College student to a sand-and-gravel yard two miles away.
That’s where Noorah sliced off the tracking monitor he had worn around his ankle for months, according to interviews with federal authorities. He then discarded it at the scene before vanishing, leaving a victim’s family crushed and prosecutors furious and flummoxed.
Law enforcement officials now say they believe Noorah got an illicit passport and boarded a plane — likely a private carrier — to flee the country.
Despite unknowns in the ongoing investigation, officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service are all but certain who helped orchestrate the remarkable escape: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
U.S. officials learned only recently from the Saudi government that Noorah arrived back home 18 months ago.
“We’re doing everything we can to get him back,” said Eric Wahlstrom, a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in Oregon.
Prosecutors still hope to try Noorah in the death of 15-year-old Fallon Smart.
But the efforts might not amount to much.
The Oregonian
A black SUV pulled up to Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah’s home in Southeast Portland two weeks before his June 2017 trial.
Noorah, a Saudi national charged the year before in the fatal hit-and-run of a teenage girl crossing Hawthorne Boulevard, had a bag packed that Saturday afternoon.
The private car drove the 21-year-old Portland Community College student to a sand-and-gravel yard two miles away.
That’s where Noorah sliced off the tracking monitor he had worn around his ankle for months, according to interviews with federal authorities. He then discarded it at the scene before vanishing, leaving a victim’s family crushed and prosecutors furious and flummoxed.
Law enforcement officials now say they believe Noorah got an illicit passport and boarded a plane — likely a private carrier — to flee the country.
Despite unknowns in the ongoing investigation, officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service are all but certain who helped orchestrate the remarkable escape: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
U.S. officials learned only recently from the Saudi government that Noorah arrived back home 18 months ago.
“We’re doing everything we can to get him back,” said Eric Wahlstrom, a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in Oregon.
Prosecutors still hope to try Noorah in the death of 15-year-old Fallon Smart.
But the efforts might not amount to much.
Read more at The Oregonian.
