Swedish tourist halted for having 'terrorist name'

A Swedish man set to take off on his "dream holiday" to Mexico was turned away before boarding, as flight officials claimed he shared the name of a wanted terrorist.

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“I was told that I couldn’t board the flight,” Abdifateh Ahmed Mohamed told daily Aftonbladet.

“They said I was a terrorist. I’ve never been suspected of a crime in my whole life."

When he was detained on Monday, it wasn't the first time that Mohamed, 30, has met with problems at international border controls.

This time it was Oslo airport border police that delayed the processing of his ticket.

After a call to the United States, a decision was made that he would not be allowed to board the flight, according to Aftonbladet.

He was recommended by airport staff to contact the American Embassy, saying they couldn’t do more to help him.

Mohamed's two travelling companions, who were allowed to continue, had to leave him behind. Stranded in Oslo, Mohamed was forced to turn back to Arlanda airport in Sweden.

“We’d planned the trip for so long. I was so damn irritated. What can I do? I feel powerless and offended,” he told the Aftonbladet.

“My friends who don’t have Muslim names can go straight through while I am taken into a room by the side of the desk. I am actually thinking about getting rid of the name ‘Ahmed’ as it’s always that bit which causes problems.”

It is unclear why American officials got involved in the case, as the passenger was heading elsewhere. At the American embassy in Stockholm they are not aware of the incident.

“As the traveller wasn’t travelling to, or through, the USA, this case shouldn’t have had anything to do with American authorities,” said Chris Dunnett of the American Embassy to the paper.

The FBI has had the Egyptian terrorist Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali on its most wanted list ever since the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.