JOHANNESBURG, 26 July 2003 — Five men handed over by Malawi to the United States last month have been released in Sudan after being cleared of suspicion that they belong to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
An official in Malawi’s office of the director of public prosecutions said on Thursday the Sudanese Embassy in Malawi had confirmed the release of the men.
“All five of them have been cleared and will be sent to their respective countries,” he said. He would not say when US authorities had handed the men over to the Sudanese.
Sudan’s government-owned Al-Anbaa daily said the five were flown to Khartoum on Wednesday in a special plane as a result of “joint efforts by the Sudanese and Malawian authorities”.
It did not say where they had been held before that, but said questioning that “began in Malawi and was completed in Khartoum” had established their innocence. No comment was forthcoming from the US State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington.
The five — two Turks, one Saudi, one Kenyan and a Sudanese — were detained just two weeks before US President George W. Bush visited Africa. Their detention inflamed tensions in Malawi, which has a sizable Muslim majority.
The suspects were whisked out of the country, sparking riots by people angered at their treatment.
