WASHINGTON: Six imams who were performing evening prayers aboard an airplane were handcuffed and taken off the plane in an incident at Minneapolis-St Paul airport on Monday, media reports said yesterday.

The reports said the six imams, who had attended a conference in the city, were on a plane about to fly back to Phoenix, Arizona, and had stood up to perform evening prayers.

Alarmed passengers, regarding the action as "suspicious behaviour", alerted cabin crew who in turn alerted security staff who handcuffed the six and took them off the plane. The six were questioned for several hours and then released.

The imams said they had been performing a "normal evening prayer" and they rejected accusations that they had refused to leave the plane belonging to US Airways or had shouted "Allahu Akbar."

They imams said they were removed from the flight "for no reason" and were "humiliated" by being handcuffed and taken off the plane in the view of other passengers.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Islamic body in the US, condemned the incident as exposing the prejudices of other passengers and airplane personnel.

CAIR director Nihad Awad said that public prayers did not pose a danger to security and therefore should not be regarded as a suspicious or dangerous act.

US Airways said it was investigating the incident.

The pilot asked authorities to remove the six men after passengers expressed "concern" about their actions, said Patrick Hogan, spokesman for Minneapolis-St Paul International airport

In the gate area before boarding the aircraft bound for Phoenix, Arizona, the six "were praying loudly and spouting some kind of anti-US rhetoric regarding the war in Iraq and Saddam Hussain," said Hogan, citing a police investigation.

A flight attendant thought it was "curious" that the six men were asking for seat-belt extensions which they did not seem to need, as the extensions are given only to larger or obese passengers, Hogan said.

The six men were released after five hours of questioning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Marshals Service and the Secret Service, Hogan said. – Agencies