Yonas Fikre, a Muslim American, contends the U.S. government placed him on its no-fly list while he was abroad to coerce him to serve as an FBI informant and provide information on the place where he worshipped, Portland's biggest Sunni mosque.

Fikre's lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, on Wednesday urged a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revive Fikre's lawsuit arguing that the government had no good cause to place him on the list and that it interfered with his attempts to return to the United States.

Mayfield knows what it's like to be under federal watch. He won a $2 million settlement against the FBI after the federal agency wrongly identified Mayfield as a suspect in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Mayfield was arrested and held for two weeks before Spanish police matched the fingerprints to an Algerian national.

"You cannot deprive someone of a fundamental right, a right to movement, without a due process of law,'' Mayfield argued.

Attorney Brandon Mayfield represented Yona Fikre before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Pioneer Courthouse on Wednesday.

Government lawyers countered that U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ruled appropriately in 2016 when she dismissed Fikre's lawsuit, calling his case moot since his name had been removed from the no-fly list by then. Fikre was permitted to board a domestic flight that month, Brown noted.

Yet minutes into Wednesday's hearing, Joshua Waldman, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney, offered to submit a written declaration that Fikre is no longer on the no-fly list and won't be placed back on it for the same reasons as in 2010, if that's what it would take to halt the appeal.

"We are prepared to file that declaration with this court,'' Waldman said. "If you think that's necessary, then we'll provide it.'' He said the government had expected Brown to ask for one, but she never did.

The justices weren't pleased with his sudden offer.

"You were prepared to do it, but you haven't done it?'' asked Judge Morgan Christen.

"Why do you have to be ordered by any court?'' added Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson.

They pointed out that Fikre says his life was turned upside down for years, his marriage destroyed and his business disrupted because of his placement on the no-fly list. So why wouldn't the government provide additional relief by giving him something to show to his relatives and business colleagues that he's not on the federal list, they asked.

"Isn't that the obvious response of the government, and now you're telling me you didn't think it was necessary?'' Christen asked. "It created chaos in his life in his business and life. Why isn't he entitled to declaratory relief?''

Waldman responded that the government thought it was sufficient evidence that Fikre was allowed to fly out of Oregon in 2016.

Asked by the justices if the government's offer would suffice, Mayfield said it wouldn't.

"We would like that of course,'' he said, but it's not enough.

Mayfield said his client couldn't be in court because he's struggling to make a living now as a long-haul truck driver and coping with the stigma that he was "somehow a terrorist'' for being on the list for up to six years.

"We're not just challenging individual actions against Mr. Fikre, but the no-fly list as unconstitutional,'' Mayfield said.

Mayfield also contends the government violated Fikre's Fourth Amendment rights by intercepting his phone calls, emails and text messages without probable cause or a warrant.

The government argued Brown appropriately found that the monitoring under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against illegal searches.

Fikre's entanglement with federal authorities began during a trip to Sudan in 2010. He planned to use his experience working for a cellular phone company in the U.S. to distribute and sell consumer electronic products in East Africa.

On April 21, 2010, he received a call from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, asking him to contact embassy officials. The next morning, Fikre went to the embassy and was met by FBI agents from Portland. When Fikre asked to be represented by his Oregon-based lawyer, one of the agents told Fikre he couldn't return to the United States because he was on the no-fly list, according to Fikre's appeal.

Fikre was questioned for several hours about the As-Saber Mosque in Portland, where he attended prayer services, and was asked to be an informant in exchange for "substantial compensation'' and removal from the no-fly list, according to Fikre and his lawyer.

During a subsequent trip to the United Arab Emirates, Fikre was forcibly taken from a home there on June 1, 2011, by Emirates secret police and placed in a windowless cell for 106 days. He was questioned again about the activities, fundraising and leadership of the Portland mosque and subjected to threats and beatings, according to his appeal. One day, he took a lie detector test and was asked if he had solicited funds for al-Qaeda, his lawyer wrote.

Ultimately, Fikre flew to Sweden, where he sought asylum in 2012.

Less than two weeks after holding a press conference in Sweden, Fikre, his brother and another man were indicted in federal court in California on unrelated financial charges that were ultimately dismissed against Fikre.

The FBI maintains the no-fly list of people who cannot fly in, out or over the United States as possible threats to civil aviation or national security, according to the government.

Fikre filed his lawsuit against the federal government and the FBI in May 2013. While it was pending, he learned his name was removed from the no-fly list on May 9, 2016, but he never was told why or what had changed.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian