WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (AFP) - US authorities on Wednesday defended a decision to deny entry to former British pop star Cat Stevens and deport him back to Britain "on national security grounds."
Now known as Yusuf Islam, the musician was to be put on a flight to Britain on Wednesday, US and British officials said.
A plane carrying Islam, who changed his name after becoming a Muslim in 1977, was diverted on Tuesday after he was found to be on a London-Washington flight.
US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge defended the move to reject the singer saying the rules apply "whether you are a celebrity or a complete unknown."
Ridge added that if "that name appears on a watch list that says you're not to fly on airplanes, for whatever reason, the individual at the port of entry ... is responsible to make sure that the information is acted upon, and that's precisely what we did.
Ridge criticised United Airlines for letting Islam on the plane in London.
"Unfortunately, United Airlines had the information and they didn't act on it before he got on the airplane. But we made that information available to national security's home targeting center, we took that action."
A US security official told AFP that Islam's name appeared on several watch lists. "We refused him on national security grounds," the official said.
Islam was denied entry to Israel in 2000 on suspicion he had given money to the radical Palestinian group Hamas. The singer denied supporting terrorism at the time.
The presence of the onetime pop singer, who skyrocketed to fame in the 1960s with hit songs like "Peace Train" and "Wild World," was discovered only after the plane took off from London's Heathrow Airport.
When the United Airlines passenger list was sent to US authorities, the name "Yusuf Islam" popped up on several watch lists, sparking the decision to land the plane at the nearest airport, in Bangor, Maine, the official said.
"Anytime you get somebody with a watch list, we want them to land at the nearest airport, especially coming into the northeastern corridor, where Washington DC is. That's our biggest concern, the northeast corridor airspace," he said.
Customs and immigration officials questioned the singer and "denied his admission to the United States" based on that interview, the official noted. His daughter was allowed to carry on to Washington.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman, Garrison Courtney, told AFP Islam's name "was placed on watch lists because of concerns that the US has about activities that can potentially be related to terrorism.
"More recently, our intelligence community has come into the possession of additional information that further heightens our concerns towards Yusuf Islam," Courtney said.
A British embassy official confirmed that the singer was to return to Britain on Wednesday and noted that London was unable to intervene in US immigration matters.
Cat Stevens, born Steven Georgiou to a Greek Cypriot father and a Swedish mother, gave up pop music when he converted. But he released an Islamic influenced album in the mid-1990s.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a statement criticizing the US decision.
"When internationally respected Islamic personalities like Yusuf Islam and Professor Tariq Ramadan are denied entry to the United States, it sends the disturbing message that even moderate and mainstream Muslims will now be treated like terrorists," CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said.
Ramadan, a 41-year-old scholar, was barred in August from entering the United States to take up a teaching post at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, and his visa was revoked by the US State Department.