The story surrounding Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit just got a bit stranger.

According to a passenger aboard the flight, Mutallab approached the boarding gate in Amsterdam with an apparent friend and without a passport. Kurt Haskell of Michigan tells the story:

Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man…

While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time.’”

Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab’s lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.

The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn’t see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.

If his story is accurate, and we have no reason to doubt that it is, there’s an even bigger question looming: Who was the well-dressed man and why was he interested in making sure Mutallab was able to board Flight 253?