Britain Complains To U.S. Over Cat Stevens Deportation

WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (AFP) - Britain on Wednesday complained to the United States over the deportation of pop singer turned Islamic activist Cat Stevens, who was denied entry on national security grounds.
But Stevens, who is now known as Yusuf Islam, was to be put on a flight to London late Wednesday, a day after the London-Washington flight he was on was diverted and he was taken off.
And the United States' domestic security chief insisted that tough new anti-terrorism regulations introduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks applied equally to a "celebrity or a complete unknown".
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Islam, who became a Muslim and turned his back on pop music in 1977, should not have been deported, a spokesman told Britain's Press Association news agency.
Straw spoke to Powell at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York.
"He heard the reports of the incident involving Cat Stevens," said the spokesman. "He did say to the secretary of state that this action should not have been taken," the spokesman was quoted as saying.
US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge defended the move, saying the rules apply "whether you are a celebrity or a complete unknown."
Ridge said 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."
However a US spokesman for United Airlines, Jeff Green, said Islam's passport and reservation data had all been cross-checked with government data.
"So anyone suggesting this is a United employee's fault would be simply unfair and wrong," Green told AFP.
"United and the government will be working together to ensure that an incident like this doesn't happen again."
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, 57, 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 became an international star with hit songs like "Peace Train", "Wild World" and "Morning Has Broken" was discovered only after the plane left London-Heathrow Airport.
The plane was forced to land at Bangor in Maine and Islam was taken off, though his daughter was allowed to continue to Washington.
"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 official said.
Customs and immigration officials questioned the singer and decided to refuse him entry, the official said.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman, Garrison Courtney, told AFP Islam's name "was placed on watch lists because of concerns that the United States 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.
Islam was born Steven Georgiou to a Greek Cypriot father and a Swedish mother. He partially returned to the music in the mid-1990s with the release of an Islamic influenced album.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) strongly criticised the US government.
"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.