US officials last night defended the deportation of Yusuf Islam, previously known as Cat Stevens, as it emerged that the former pop star met White House officials earlier this year.
Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary earlier intervened in the row by telling Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, that the decision to ban Islam ”should not have been taken”.
Straw, who is in New York to address the UN, was meeting Powell to discuss unrelated matters. The Foreign Office had initially said the matter was one for US authorities.
FBI and customs officers detained Islam for questioning after security officials diverted his flight to Washington 600 miles to Bangor, Maine, having spotted his name on a watchlist.
It emerged on Thursday that on his last visit in May he met with officials of the White House’s office of faith-based and community initiatives to discuss philanthropic work. The US department of homeland security said last night that fresh intelligence had been gathered since then.
Islam (56) said the foreign secretary’s intervention had been ”very kind”, adding that he was shocked to have been denied entry to the US on security grounds.
”Half of me wants to smile, half of me wants to growl,” he said as he arrived at Heathrow on an overnight flight, before returning to his London home.
”The whole thing is totally ridiculous. Everybody knows who I am. I am no secret figure.” He said he would consult his lawyers and hoped it had been a mistake.
Islam changed his name and gave up music for charity and educational work after converting to Islam in the late 70s, although he has recently performed live and released recordings. Known for hits such as Wild World and Morning Has Broken, he is now head of the Islamia schools trust and has met the prime minister, the Prince of Wales and the home secretary in his role.
He was travelling to Washington with his daughter Maymanah (21) on Tuesday night. ”They diverted the plane at the last moment to a place called Bangor, which I’d never heard of, and suddenly I was surrounded by FBI who interrogated me,” he said.
”They actually treated me very well. The one positive thing I can say is that a lot of security officers are pleased because they got my autograph.”
Garrison Courteney, a spokesperson for the department of homeland security, declined to specify why Islam had been listed but said it related to intelligence gathered since May.
”When someone is put on a no-fly list there’s a lot of security and decision-making to do with that,” he said. ”It’s not done casually. People are put on there because they are a threat to airline safety.”
American civil liberties groups have warned that large numbers of passengers, including many US citizens, have complained of being unfairly included on the list. There is no independent appeals procedure and the exact criteria for inclusion are unclear.
The Foreign Office said it had received more than a hundred complaints from Britons about their treatment by US security officials in the past year, although many of these were to do with issues such as shackling prior to deportation.
Another US government official, speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the authorities believed donations from Islam might have ended up helping Hamas and Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up UN and FBI offices in New York. But that suggestion falls short of a claim that he knowingly gave money to terrorists.
Islam was banned from Israel in 2000 because of alleged contributions to Hamas, but said at the time that he had never knowingly supported terrorist groups.
He also gave royalties from album sales to those bereaved by the September 11 attacks. – Guardian Unlimited Â