Airline says Mourad Benchellali is on the No Fly list and aircraft passes through US airspace. He addresses youth groups in Europe to dissuade them from jihad

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A former prisoner in Guantánamo has said he was prevented from boarding a flight from France to Canada because the aircraft would fly through US airspace.

Mourad Benchellali, who addresses youth groups in Europe in a bid to dissuade them from jihad, was prevented from boarding the Air Transat flight from Lyon to Montreal.

The Canadian airline said because the flight flies through US airspace “our personnel had to, and duly applied the provisions of a US security program known as Secure Flight, as all airlines must.”

The Secure Flight program checks passengers against the US No Fly list.

Benchellali, 33, who was released from the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in July 2004, said in a telephone interview he was unaware he was on the US list. He has flown to other destinations in Europe and beyond, but this was the first time he planned a transatlantic flight.

Benchellali was to attend a conference on peace and another on the phenomenon of radicalization of western youth who have headed by the thousands to Syria.

“I wasn’t going on vacation. I was going for prevention,” he said in the interview.

At check-in, he said he was informed that “there is a problem because the plane crosses American airspace”.

The US Transportation Security Administration receives flight manifests for any commercial flight that will either land in the United States or fly over US airspace as part of the Secure Flight program. Airlines can opt to rebook a passenger to a flight that doesn’t cross US airspace, reroute the flight to make sure it doesn’t come into US airspace or cancel the passenger’s ticket.

Conference organizers expressed shock that their guest was banned from his flight. Police and university researchers were to take part in a conference organized by the Observatory of Radicalization in addition to a conference entitled “48 Hours for Peace”.

Benchellali uses his experience at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan as a lesson for youth tempted by the Islamic State group’s savvy recruiting campaign for jihad.