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| Africa: Horn |
| Kenya nabs 3 for alleged plot on Israel’s embassy |
| 2004-05-21 |
| Kenyan authorities are planning to deport an Australian detained and questioned by anti-terrorist police, an Australian official and police said Thursday. Mukhtur Muxamed Sayid, a 32-year-old of Somali descent from New South Wales state, was detained on suspicion of terrorist activities, an official at the Australian High Commission, who did not want to be identified further, said. Sayid and two other people, including his wife, were picked up by police on Sunday while trying to book rooms at a hotel opposite the Israeli Embassy. Police spokesman Supt. Jaspher Ombati said Kenyan authorities decided to deport Sayid and his wife because their presence in Kenya "posed a security threat." He declined to elaborate and it was not clear when the pair would be deported. Ombati identified Sayid’s wife as Sitaka Bonjak, but it was not clear what her nationality was. A third person who was also picked up, Abdullah Mohammed, was still being questioned as police attempted to establish more details about the suspect, Ombati said. He is believed to be Kenyan, but the information he has given detectives "doesn’t add up," Ombati added. The three were detained after hotel workers became suspicious of the trio as they tried to book rooms for two other unidentified people at the hotel. The two other people never showed up at the hotel, Ombati said. "The manner in which they were making the bookings and the manner they concealed the names of those people who were to come made security people suspicious," Ombati said. "This raised suspicion and prompted authorities to make a decision." There were no further details immediately available. Kenya has been the scene of two terrorist attacks, the first one in Aug. 7 1998 when members of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network bombed the U.S. embassy in the capital, killing 219 people, including 12 Americans. On Nov. 28, 2002, terrorists rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into an Israeli-owned hotel on the Kenyan coast, killing 15 people. Terrorists also fired two surface-to-air missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli charter as it took off from Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |