The United States has suspended the visa of Honduran Interior Minister Jorge Arturo Reina as he was implicated in alleged terrorist activities, U.S. Consular spokesman Ian Brownlee told El Nacional newspaper on Friday.

In recent years, the U.S. government had extended special permits for Reina, who was also the former chancellor of Honduran Autonomous National University.

Reina's visa problem is one of the reasons why he failed to become the country's foreign minister after President Manuel Zelaya took office on Jan. 27.

On Wednesday, Marco Rogelio Clara, head of the country's Executive Revenue Directorate, was arrested at the airport of Los Angeles in the United States, and then deported, after his visa was revoked for alleged links to drug trafficking.

The U.S. government also annulled the visa of Rafael Leonardo Callejas, Honduran president from 1990 to 1994, citing his alleged corruption, and that of top Honduran judge Eulogio Chavez, for calling a 2003 demonstration where a U.S. flag was burned.

(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2006)