A former Prime Minister of Norway was prevented from leaving Washington Dulles International Airport for about an hour and quizzed because he visited Iran three years ago
Kjell Magne Bondevik, who served as Prime Minister of Norway from 1997 to 2000 and 2001 to 2005, flew to the U.S. from Europe on Tuesday to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, according to The Guardian.
He was held for an hour after customs agents saw in his diplomatic passport that he had been to Iran in 2014. Bondevik said his passport also clearly indicated that he was the former PM of Norway.
Bondevik, who heads the human rights organization The Oslo Center, spoke at a conference in Iran in 2014. He says he was questioned about the trip after a 40-minute wait.
“Of course I fully understand the fear of letting terrorists come into this country,” he told ABC7. “It should be enough when they found that I have a diplomatic passport, [that I’m a] former prime minister.
“That should be enough for them to understand that I don’t represent any problem or threat to this country and [to] let me go immediately, but they didn’t.”
Bondevik said he's told the scrutiny wasn't related to President Donald Trump's executive order, but a 2015 law that places extra restrictions on citizens of 38 countries if they have traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia or Yemen since 2011.
Customs and Border Protection says it can't discuss "specifics of any individual's admissibility review."
AP inputs
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