A Victorian state MP who was denied entry to the United States on an official visit last month has declined to comment on reports he misrepresented the number of times he had visited Syria in the past six months.
Labor MP Khalil Eideh, who is the deputy president of the legislative council, was barred from travelling with a group of other Victorian MPs on an official trip to look at drug laws when he was barred from boarding a flight from Vancouver to Denver on 28 July.
Eideh, who has joint Australian and Syrian citizenship, told reporters on his return from Melbourne that while he had not received an official explanation he believed he was blocked by US president Donald Trump’s travel ban, which mandates that people from six Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, can be denied entry.
He also told reporters he had last visited Syria at Christmas.
But News Corp reported on Friday that Eideh had made two further trips to Syria in April and July. The latter trip was tacked on to an official visit to Lebanon with a medical delegation.
Asked if he had visited Syria in July, Eideh said: “Of course, I have my father there… He is 90 and can’t travel back.”
“We have got family in Lebanon and Syria. It is normal.”
There is no suggestion Eideh did anything wrong by visiting Syria. It is not clear whether US authorities were aware of the recent trips, as Eideh told News Corp you “don’t need a passport” to cross from Lebanon to Syria.
But he said last month that US officials were told of both his Syrian citizenship status and the fact that he regularly visited Syria before issuing the diplomatic visa.
“If there was any issue they should’ve told me, they’ve got five weeks to do that, not just be stopped at Vancouver and not allowed to board the plane and join my colleagues to do the business our parliament asked us to do,” he told reporters last month.
Eideh declined to comment when contacted by Guardian Australia.
He was scheduled to meet with US officials to discuss the ban on Friday, but the meeting was postponed to next week.
A spokesman for the Andrews government suggested speculation over the Eideh’s travel plans were a “distraction” from the unfolding scandal over an exclusive lobster dinner, where opposition leader Matthew Guy dined in company with alleged mafia boss Antonio Maddaferi.
Guy said he did not realise Maddaferi was on the guest list until after the dinner and referred the matter himself to the state’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.
“Unlike Matthew Guy, Mr Eideh has not been caught drinking grange and eating lobster with alleged organised crime figures,” a government spokesman said.
Eideh has made Syrian loyalist statements in the past, signing a letter in 2002 professing loyalty to Bashar Al-Assad, which he later downplayed by saying he had not written the letter himself, and sharing a Facebook post in 2016 of a photoshopped TIME magazine cover labelling Assad a “terrorist warrior.”
Guardian Australia understands the meeting with US officials over the decision to bar Eideh entry to the US has been rescheduled for Tuesday.
