More international travel for Feeding Our Future defendants

Two more defendants in the free-food scandal will be traveling overseas this spring.

We’ve noted before the globe-trotting habits of defendants in the sprawling Feeding Our Future case. And that doesn’t even count the several defendants who are international fugitives from justice.

Qamar Hassan (Defendant No. 23 and guilty plea No. 11) will be traveling later this month to Saudi Arabia on a three-week religious journey. She claims that relatives are paying for the trip.

Just last month, Hassan received permission to travel to Atlanta, GA, to visit a sick friend. She is still awaiting sentencing in the case.

Notwithstanding the alleged generosity of relatives, I can’t help shake the feeling that these trips are consuming resources that would otherwise be available for forfeiture to help compensate taxpayers for the cost of the fraud.

Also planning a spring trip is Khadar Adan, Defendant No. 39. He is planning a two-month “business” trip to Kenya, Ethiopia, and Dubai from April to June. This will be Adan’s third overseas trip in the last year as he awaits his trial in the case.

It’s not the previous trips that will create the problem. It’s always that last trip you don’t come back from.

Bon voyage!