A Tigard businessman helping distribute medicine and supplies in his native country of Libya has been blocked from flying back to the United States, his family and attorney said Friday.

Jamal Tarhuni, a 55-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was denied boarding a U.S.-bound flight at a Tunisia airport last month, his daughter said. After consulting with the U.S. embassy in Tunisia, Tarhuni met with

agents who interrogated him about his religion and intimated that he had information about terrorist plans, his daughter said. Tarhuni, who has lived in the Portland area for more than 35 years and ran a furniture store and import business, is Muslim.

The refusal to allow Tarhuni to fly home has stunned his family and Portland-based humanitarian organization

Tarhuni is a committed and trustworthy volunteer who has helped the Christian nonprofit take supplies to hospitals in

on three trips over the past year, said Bill Essig, vice president of international programs.

Tarhuni also has coordinated with groups such as the Tunisian Red Crescent and met with Libyan health officials to identify other needs for Medical Teams International, Essig said.

"Based on our experience, we believe there must be some misunderstanding," Essig said. "He's always demonstrated integrity and concern" about those the agency is helping.

The FBI has no comment, said Portland spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's office has asked the FBI for information on Tarhuni's situation, said Tom Towslee, Wyden's state communications director.

Tarhuni, who was born in Libya, came to Portland more than 35 years ago to study engineering at Portland State University and escape the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, said his daughter, Lina Tarhuni of Tigard. Last year, he helped organize a rally at Pioneer Courthouse Square to protest Gadhafi's crackdown on Libyans who sought to overthrow the dictator. Gadhafi was killed last October in the uprising.

Tarhuni, an importer, was moved to do something and approached Medical Teams International to offer his assistance, his daughter said.

He left last October on his current trip. But when he arrived at the airport in Tunisia on Jan. 17 to leave, the airport workers told him he could not board, his daughter said.

He thought it was a joke because they all knew him from the several times he had cleared medical shipments through customs before transporting them to Libya, she said.

After a few days, he met with FBI agents, she said.

When FBI agents told him he needed to take a lie detector test before being allowed to return to the United States, Tarhuni agreed -- against the advice of a Tunisian attorney and his Portland lawyer, his daughter said.

But he later refused after another FBI employee tried to get him to sign a paper without reading it, his daughter said. When he finally saw it, she said, it appeared to be a waiver of his constitutional rights, which angered him.

Portland attorney Tom Nelson said he is planning to fly to Tunisia on Monday to help Tarhuni and another Portland-area man, Mustafa Elogbi, who also has been blocked from re-entering the United States. The two men and an unnamed third client who also has been banned from flying all attend the same mosque, Masjed As-Saber, in Southwest Portland, Nelson said.

"This is something that happens with shocking frequency," said Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney with the C

which has called on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to intervene. His agency receives several calls each month from U.S. citizens who are Muslim and suddenly barred from re-entering the country if they travel abroad.

"Our sense is that the vulnerability of an American citizen in a foreign country is used as a point of leverage to solicit information that the government wouldn't otherwise be able to solicit inside the United States," Abbas said.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Portland that challenged the

on behalf of a Portland man and several other U.S. citizens who had been denied boarding without explanation. U.S. District Judge Anna Brown dismissed the lawsuit, saying the district court lacked jurisdiction over Transportation Security Administration's orders, which must be heard by an appellate court.

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