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Al-Najjar in limbo as he heads to Bahrain
By GRAHAM BRINK and PAUL DE LA GARZA
But new complications arose late in the evening when an official with the Embassy of Bahrain in Washington, D.C., said his country would reject Al-Najjar when he arrived. Jamal Rowaie, second secretary at the embassy, told the Times that the two-week visa Al-Najjar obtained was intended for "ordinary people" who want to visit the tiny Middle Eastern country. He did not know why the visa was granted in the first place. "His case is not an ordinary case," Rowaie said. "Because of that, Bahrain will not allow him to come." Al-Najjar, accused of having ties to terrorism, was jailed last year for overstaying a student visa. He was expected to arrive in Bahrain via jet early this morning. Rowaie said he did not know what would happen if Al-Najjar is rejected. Rowaie's statement was news to U.S. government officials. Al-Najjar was traveling in the custody of American immigration officials. Citing security concerns, including the possibility of radicals attacking his American escorts, U.S. officials remained tight-lipped about Al-Najjar's destination until the last possible moment. His family said they would remain silent on which country Al-Najjar was being deported to until he arrived safely. Even before Rowaie's revelation, Al-Najjar's brother-in-law, Sami Al-Arian, said he thought there was a chance Al-Najjar would be turned away from wherever he landed. "Then we would be back to the beginning again trying to find him a country," Al-Arian said. Al-Najjar, 45, came to the United States in 1981 but overstayed his student visa. In 1997, the government jailed him, saying it had classified evidence linking him to the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They never charged him with a crime. He was released in December 2000, after a federal judge ruled his rights were violated by the government's refusal to divulge the evidence so that he could mount a defense. Last November, a federal appeals court upheld a deportation order for overstaying the visa and ordered him back into custody. For the last 10 months, Al-Najjar has lived in solitary confinement at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County. He has spent more than four of the last six years behind bars. He and his family spent the last months trying to secure a visa from one of a handful of mostly Middle Eastern countries. Last week, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority granted him travel documents, which paved the way for securing a visa from Bahrain. Al-Najjar called his family from prison Wednesday night. During the 10-minute call, he told them he was leaving the next morning. Al-Najjar has never been to the country where he is headed and has only one acquaintance there, said his sister Nahla Al-Arian, who is Sami Al-Arian's wife. "We are very very worried about his safety," Nahla Al-Arian said. "We are praying he will be safe and join his family." Al-Najjar's wife, Fedaa Al-Najjar, also is facing deportation, though she has not been jailed. She, like her husband, has no passport. Both are stateless Palestinians. Egyptian officials have indicated they will grant her travel documents, but that is no guarantee she and their three children will be able to join Al-Najjar, wherever he ends up. They hope to reunite in the next month or so. "They've taken my husband. They've taken my driver's license. They've taken my job," Fedaa Al-Najjar said. "They've taken my life." If the reunion is in Bahrain, they will find themselves in an overwhelmingly Muslim nation about 3 1/2 times the size of Washington, D.C. The island-nation lies off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. It is just west of Qatar. Due in part to petroleum processing and refining, the country has one of the highest standards of living in the Persian Gulf area. It is also an international banking center and boasts a more relaxed social environment than its neighbors, the CIA World Factbook says.
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