The FBI has arrested an oil worker who claimed he was attacked by armed Middle Eastern men and asked questions about the oilfield’s operations.
Gregory Lee, 26, was taken into custody last night and charged with making false statements to federal agents, reports the Associated Press.
Lee’s claim sparked terror fears in the remote area of southeastern Utah.
Navajo police officers joined other police on a security sweep of the oilfield along with ExxonMobil personnel.
Three schools – an elementary and high school in nearby Montezuma Creek, Utah, and a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in Aneth – went on emergency lockdown yesterday as a result.
Lee told authorities four armed men attacked him at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night at the ExxonMobil oil and natural gas processing facility in Aneth, Utah.
“The man had minor injuries, which are believed to have been self-inflicted,” Salt Lake City FBI spokesman George Dougherty told the Associated Press.
Rick Bailey, who heads emergency planning in San Juan County, said the question of a possible terrorist threat was raised because the man indicated his attackers were possibly of Middle Eastern descent and were speaking a language he didn’t understand.
Aneth is on the Navajo reservation about 380 miles southeast of Salt Lake City at the sparsely inhabited Four Corners juncture of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.
The oilfield and processing facility are ”nothing special,” Bailey said. “It would be a sabotage if anything,” he speculated. ”The likelihood of causing injury or death to many people would be unlikely at best.”
FBI agents who questioned Lee have been unable to come up with a motive for his behavior.
Lee will be transported to Salt Lake City today.
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WND Staff