A Virginia man says he has been stuck in limbo in Egypt for almost two months, living in a cheap hotel and surviving on fast food. The culprit? 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 he spent time studying in Yemen and left in early May. The US has been scrutinizing 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, said the AP.
Wehelie was returning to the U.S. with his brother Yusuf via Egypt on 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 that 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 American airspace. His passport was canceled and a new one issued only for travel to the United States.
Wehelie said he had no dealings with a terrorist organization 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 the capital San’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 told The Associated Press from his ramshackle hotel in downtown Cairo.
By David Wilkening
