Cairo: A Virginia man said he has been stuck in limbo in Egypt for the last six weeks, living in a cheap hotel and surviving on fast food after his name was placed on a US no-fly list because of a trip to Yemen.
Yahya Wehelie, a 26-year-old Muslim who was born in Fairfax, Virginia to Somali parents, said on Wednesday he spent 18 months studying in Yemen and left in early May. The US has been scrutinising citizens who study in Yemen more closely since the man who tried to blow up a US-bound airliner on Christmas was linked to an Al Qaida offshoot in Yemen.
Wehelie was returning to the US with his brother Yousuf via Egypt on May 5 when Egyptian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight to New York. They told him the FBI wanted to speak with him.
He said he was then told by FBI agents in Egypt his name was on a no-fly list because of people he met in Yemen and he could not board a US airline or enter US airspace. His passport was cancelled and a new one issued only for travel to the US, which expires on September 12. He does not have Somali citizenship.
Wehelie said his brother Yousuf was allowed to return home, but only after he was detained for three days by Egyptian police on suspicion of carrying a weapon. He said his brother was interrogated by a man who claimed to work for the CIA.
Wehelie said he had no dealings with a terrorist organisation while in Yemen and does not see himself as a particularly observant Muslim. He said he was studying information technology at the Lebanese International University in Sana'a and only visited a mosque a handful of times. He said he had also studied a little Arabic.
"It's amazing how the US government can do something like this," he said.
"I'm cool with all their fighting terrorism and all that, I'm cool with that. I like that, more power to them," he said in American-accented English, wearing baggy basketball shorts and a long white T-shirt.
"My home is America and I don't know why I can't go back there," he said.
While in Yemen, Wehelie married a Somali woman. She remains in Yemen and was to have joined him when he returned home.
His family said Wehelie was never physically abused but subjected to psychological pressure and denied access to an US lawyer his family hired for him.
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the bureau does not comment on whether a particular person is on a watch list.
