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ICED EARTH Guitarist In Suicide Bomber Scare!

March 17, 2004

ICED EARTH guitarist Ralph Santolla demanded to be let off a flight to England earlier today (March 17) after he spotted two fellow passengers behaving strangely while boarding the plane. The following is Ralph's detailed account of the whole experience, as provided exclusively to BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

"OK. First of all, let me say unequivocally that I am not a racist. I have three Moroccan-Arab nieces, and more than a couple of Muslim family members (I'm Catholic).

"I was leaving today for the Manchester/Liverpool area of England to work on mixes for my modern rock/metal project, STARE. At the gate in Tampa, there were two Arab dudes getting on the plane. The three of us were at the end of the line boarding. One guy was dressed in a suit, the other like a college student. They were acting (?) like they didn't know each other. They seemed very nervous. About four elderly folks got in between the two guys. I noticed that the guy next to me, the one in the suit, had, at a minimum, his hands and wrists shaved. I thought that was weird, in a disturbing kind of way (shaving one's body hair is a religious obligation often observed by would-be suicide bombers so that they are 'clean' before entering heaven). They both noticed that I was watching them closely. The college-looking guy kept looking back and making eye contact with the other guy and then looking away. When we got on the plane, the guy in the suit turns out to be a pilot getting a free ride of the jumpseat in the cockpit. After the other guy looked around making eye contact with me several times, as if to see if I was still keeping an eye on them, I called the flight attendant. I told him there was something not right about these guys, and I wanted off. They had to bring the jetway back out to get me off the plane! The airline will let me use the same ticket on Friday, but I was pretty spooked!"

ICED EARTH will kick off a U.S. headlining tour with CHILDREN OF BODOM and EVERGREY on April 18 in Cleveland, Ohio.

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