BLANTYRE, 24 June 2003 — Malawian authorities working with US security officials said yesterday they had detained five suspected Al-Qaeda members, only two weeks before President George W. Bush is due to visit Africa.
“US operatives assisted by the Malawi National Intelligence Bureau and immigration officials are holding Al-Qaeda suspects in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe,” the southern African country’s director of public prosecutions, Fahad Assani, told Reuters.
“The US government is pressing for their immediate deportation,” Assani added, saying the group of five men had been detained in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre early on Saturday.
Assani said they would appear in court later yesterday.
Bush is due to make his first visit to Africa in early July and security officials have been on the ground preparing for his visit. Malawi is not on the tentative itinerary but nearby South Africa and Botswana are.
Lawyer Shabir Latif, representing the suspects, identified them as Saudi Fahad Ral Bahli, Turkish nationals Ibrahim Itabaci and Arif, Sudanese Mahmud Sardar Issa and Kenyan Khalifa Abdi Hassan.
Latif said before defense lawyers became involved the Malawian authorities had secretly agreed to turn over the suspects to US custody ahead of deportation. It was not immediately clear where the men would be deported to.
Latif said he had obtained a High Court ruling late on Sunday ordering the five to be brought before a court within 48 hours or be released on bail. “The suspects were just about to be flown out of the country when we intervened,” Latif told Reuters.
A number of African countries have been cited in official security warnings from US and British authorities over possible “terrorist” attacks.
The United States closed its embassy in Kenya on Friday citing a “high” level of threat, and Britain has halted flights to the Kenyan capital Nairobi. More than 200 people were killed in a bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya in 1998 that was widely blamed on the Al-Qaeda network.
Like many countries in the region, Malawi has a sizeable Muslim minority, including President Bakili Muluzi.
Meanwhile, Kenyan police said they will this week charge four people with murder following an attack last November on an Israeli-run hotel in the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa.
“We are going to charge four people for murder or loss of life in relation to last year’s attack of Mombasa’s Paradise hotel,” Director of Public Prosecution Phillip Murgor told a press conference in Nairobi yesterday.
“Those who will be charged were earlier charged on lesser offences, but it has emerged that they were involved in the actual incident,” said Murgor, who was flanked by Justice and Constitutional Minister Kiraitu Murungi.
Murgor said the four will be arraigned in court either today or tomorrow.
Eighteen people were killed in the blast -- 12 Kenyans, three Israeli tourists, including two children, and three presumed bombers.
Moments after that attack, two missiles narrowly missed an Israeli passenger airliner, with 260 tourists on board, after it took off from Mombasa airport.
Murungi said investigations into the attacks, which were carried out by Kenyan police working with international agencies, notably from the United States, had made significant progress.
“The government continues to investigate these incidents and will take appropriate action whenever there is sufficient evidence to sustain prosecution within the existing legal framework,” Murungi said.
He said investigators are currently investigating other people, who are in custody in relation to the attacks.
