CHICAGO, Jan. 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) Anna Mustafa, a former member of the Chicago Board of Education and currently an aide in the Cook County Clerk's office, was freed on Sunday after posting $50,000 bail on charges that she allegedly made a bomb threat at O'Hare International Airport.
Mustafa, 53, of Tinley Park, a Chicago suburb, was arrested Friday afternoon at a Swissair ticket counter on the international terminal after her luggage was passed through a bomb-detection machine before a flight to Tel Aviv, where she was traveling to attend her father's funeral.
According to prosecutors, Mustafa became agitated and verbally abusive after the luggage check and said: "Maybe I have a bomb in my purse."
It is also alleged that she called her arresting officers "fascist pigs" and threatened that they would be fired because she works in the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk's office.
But according to her attorney, the authorities took Mustafa's comments out of context. "She simply pointed out the deficiency of the process they subjected her to," said Attorney Larry O'Gara.
"After the X-ray, she pointed out that the scan of all the luggage did not include her purse."
Police arrested her on three felony counts of disorderly conduct. Police said that no bomb was found in her luggage or in her purse.
Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan on Sunday set the bond at a hearing for $50,000. Mustafa was released Sunday night after posting her bail.
Mustafa was going to her father's funeral in the West Bank town of Beitunia where he died on Thursday.
Mustafa was the first Arab-American appointed to the Chicago Board of Education and served from 1990-1992.
