CHANTILLY, Virginia -- A US teenager stuck in Kuwait for a month after he was apparently placed on the U.S. government's no-fly list was reunited with his family at a Washington-area airport Friday. Gulet Mohamed, 19, of Alexandria, Virginia, greeted family members at a terminal of Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia. Mohamed said it felt great to be back in the United States and expressed concern for others who may be in the same situation he was in.
"There are probably people out there being tortured like I was, whose voices are not being heard," he said.
Mohamed claims he was blindfolded, beaten and tortured while he was detained for nearly a month in Kuwait at the behest of the U.S. authorities.
| Prove it. I want photos of his skin, X-rays of his bones, eyewitnesses, documents. Otherwise it's straight out of the al-Qaeda playbook and further proof that he was up to no good while overseas. |
His return to the United States was delayed for weeks because U.S. authorities had apparently placed him on the no-fly list. Diane Kelleher, a Justice Department lawyer, refused to confirm in court whether Mohamed is indeed on the no-fly list.
On Friday, Gulet's mother Bella Ali hugged her son and thanked God and everyone who had taken up her son's cause. Gulet's brother, Fatah Mohamed, said his brother "was just trying to get closer to his religion."
| Yeah. That's what we're worried about... |
"You're not going to find anybody who will say anything bad about Gulet," he said.
| You haven't yet asked me... |
He added that the biggest concern of his family during his brother's ordeal was that "we knew he was in the hands of people who lack principles and morals."
| Al-Qaeda? Yup, I'd believe that... |
Mohamed's reunion with his family was delayed by questioning from authorities at customs after he landed Friday morning. Mohamed says the FBI tried to question him without his lawyer present. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said lawyers are not routinely granted access to clients, and described Mohamed as uncooperative.
| Until he gets past Customs he doesn't get a lawyer. That's how it works. |
Mohamed was born in Somalia but came to the U.S. at age 3 and is a naturalized citizen. In March 2009, Mohamed traveled to Yemen and Somalia, where he still has family, to learn Arabic.
| Which he could't learn in northern Virginia, nope, nope ... |
He stayed in those countries for just a few months and settled in Kuwait in August 2009, where he should have stayed lived with an uncle.
Mohamed's lawyer, Gadeir Abbas, said it is wrong for the government or anyone else to assume Mohamed was engaged in something nefarious because he traveled to Yemen and Somalia, two terrorist hotspots. For years, he said, Yemen has been a natural place to visit for people of Somali descent who want to learn Arabic.
"Somalis go to Yemen like Americans go to Canada," Abbas said.
| Perhaps if we modified it to, "Like Americans go to Canada when they're dodging the draft"... |
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ALEXANDRIA, Virginia -- Attorneys for a Virginia teenager have filed a federal lawsuit, claiming he was detained and tortured in Kuwait after being arbitrarily placed on the United States' no-fly list.