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Brazil jails pilot in fingerprint row

American Airlines pilot Dale Robun Hirsch raises his middle finger while being photoraphed by Brazilian immigration officers upon his arrival at Sao Paulo international Airport on Wednesday. PHOTO: REUTERS

An American Airlines pilot arriving in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, was jailed Wednesday after he protested new procedures requiring all arriving US citizens to be fingerprinted and photographed, by making what federal police officers described as an obscene gesture.

Eleven other crew members on the same flight from Miami were refused entry to Brazil and detained after the police said that they had refused to be fingerprinted and behaved in a "derisive" manner. They were ordered to return to the US on the next available flight, which was to leave Sao Paulo on Wednesday night.

The incident heightened Brazilian-American tensions over the new policy that, since Jan. 1, has required that arriving Americans -- and Americans alone -- be photographed and fingerprinted by the police. The policy was implemented in retaliation for increased anti-terror measures in the US that require citizens of all but 27 countries, mostly European, to undergo nearly identical procedures.

At a conference of Western Hemisphere leaders on Monday, Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, personally asked US President George W. Bush to exempt Brazilians from the requirements. He followed that on Tuesday with public criticism of the US procedures, saying to reporters that "if the problem is to fight terrorism, this measure makes no sense" because "we have no culture of terrorism" in Brazil.

The police said that the American Airlines pilot, Dale Hersh, 52, had been charged with "disrespect for authority," an offense that carries a jail term of six months to one year. It was unclear whether he would be allowed to leave the country before facing trial. The US Consulate in Sao Paulo issued a statement saying that American officials were "working with both the federal police and American Airlines to resolve the matter."

American Airlines is one of the biggest air carriers from the US to Brazil and the rest of Latin America.
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