A stowaway managed to fly on President Bush’s press plane from Pretoria, South Africa, to Entebbe, Uganda, before he was arrested by the Secret Service.
The unidentified African man, who lacked both credentials and a passport, was allowed unhindered to fly aboard the chartered United Airlines Boeing 747 aircraft and then travel on a bus with members of the White House press corps to the Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel on the shore of Lake Victoria.
He got as far as the area of the hotel compound where Bush later met Uganda President Yoweri Museveni before being caught.
According to the Drudge Report, the White House staff noticed that no one in the press corps seemed to know the man, so they alerted Secret Service.
The Washington Post reports the man shouted angrily about South Africa when two Secret Service agents wrestled him away from the area.
According to Drudge, the Ugandan authorities charged him with illegal entry.
A reporter from the American Urban Radio network, April Ryan, told the Reuters News Agency she encountered the man at the hotel used by the press in Pretoria earlier this morning.
“He said ‘I’m going with you to Uganda”‘ Ryan told Reuters, and added that the man described himself as a reporter from Soweto but did not appear to have any credentials.
Ryan said her press pass was checked prior to boarding one of the buses taking delegation members to the airport. An official stopped the man at the door of the bus but allowed him to enter when he said he was with the press.
Officials assured reporters the president was never in danger.
“There was no indication the stowaway came within sight of President Bush,” White House travel office official Curtis Jablonka told Reuters.
Agents conducted a security sweep of the plane following the arrest.
A call to the White House for comment has not been returned.
 President Bush and Botswana’s President Festus Mogae greet local children in Gaborone, Botswana |
Uganda is the fourth stop on the president’s five-nation tour of Africa, which began Tuesday in Senegal and included Botswana and South Africa.
During his four-hour visit, Bush discussed trade with Museveni and the decades-old rebel conflict in northern Uganda, before touring an AIDS clinic.
Bush next visits Nigeria.
