MIAMI — The suspicions airport security officials had Thursday night when they saw the metal canister grew when they learned about the man who brought it in from the Middle East: a scientist who in 2003 prompted a bioterrorism scare, and ultimately went to prison, after he reported missing vials of plague samples. He later told his supervisor the vials had been “accidentally destroyed,” according to court records.
Officials shut down most of Miami International Airport overnight, roused nearby hotel guests from their beds and detained 70-year-old Thomas Butler until Friday morning, when he was released without charges, a senior law enforcement official said.
Tests on the canister found nothing dangerous, said the senior law enforcement official. Butler’s former lawyer, Jonathan Turley, said the incident appeared to be a “fantastic overreaction.”
A Miami-Dade police bomb squad spent hours scouring the airport.
Between 100 and 200 passengers were evacuated from four of the airport’s six concourses. Police and airport officials described the shutdown of the concourses as a public safety precaution.
