A Brunel University physicist has been forced to give up a top research post at Stanford University because he shares his name with a suspected Islamic terrorist.
Akram Khan, a reader in the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel, had to resign from his research post at the BaBar project at Stanford this month after failing to get visa clearance to enter the US.
He had been trying to get a visa since last November, having previously worked at Stanford on a long-term attachment.
The last time he needed to renew his visa he did so in a day. But when he returned to the UK to do the same last year, he was told that there was an Akram Khan on the US database of suspected terrorists and the authorities had to make sure it was not him.
"The lady at the US Embassy said it would take a maximum of two weeks," Dr Khan said. Nine months later - after being finger-printed on two occasions, providing all his records including a police check - he was still waiting for a visa.
Dr Khan has been in regular contact with the embassy. Officials there have said they will get back to him in due course.
Supporters from Stanford and the US-based National Academy of Sciences have sent e-mails to US authorities petitioning for his visa to be granted.
"It's Kafkaesque. It has been impossible to focus on my work. I have spent every day thinking that at any minute they might say I will (be allowed) to leave (and go back to the US)," Dr Khan said.
He added that he was offered a senior management post on the project, which is exploring the difference between matter and anti-matter.
He believes that part of the reason for the delay in processing his visa application may lie in the fact that he studies particle physics because researchers in some subjects are subjected to more scrutiny.
Dr Khan has been affected financially, not only because he has lost his management post, but also because he has had to pay rent on an apartment in the US.
But his main concern is his research career. "The senior management post was very prestigious. There are 500 people working on this project, and to stand out I have had to work hard. It is frustrating and outrageous that this has happened.
"I have been on this project since 1999, and missing even a few days or missing attending a few meetings because of these problems affects my research. I am very angry."
The results of the BaBar project are expected to be published in a couple of weeks. Now Dr Khan feels they will influence future research grants he applies for. "I have done such a lot of research, but I could have done so much more."
Ironically, Dr Khan estimates that up to 20 per cent of students on his computing course at Brunel hold radical Islamic views, and he makes strenuous efforts to confront their beliefs.
"I feel very strongly that lecturers should not shy away from controversial subjects such as religion, but many seem to be afraid of offending their students," he said.
He said that several of the students had asked him questions about his views on God in an effort to bring him round to their beliefs. "They try to tell me that all of 20th-century physics is wrong. But I love to debate with them and make them argue logically.
"Sometimes you have to break through their comfort structures, not hide away preparing for the research assessment exercise. That is what education should be about."