KENYAN MUSLIMS CALL FOR RELEASE OF “UNLAWFULLY” DETAINED SOMALIS

SOMALIA: ON LADYSILVIA: The Kenyan Muslim organisations called on police commanders for the release of all Muslims, prevalently Somalis, arrested in the past days for suspected ties to international terrorism though with no formal charges. As reported by the Kenyan press, the Forum for human rights of Muslims has decided to take legal action and file an appeal to the court after not receiving any response to requests for clarifications on the arrests and disappearances. According to the Kenyan organisation, over 50 people (other sources say more than a hundred civilians, mainly Somalis) are unlawfully detained by police in the Kenyan capital. There are also women among the detained, according to Al-amin Kimathi (co-president of the Kenyan Islamic forum), including the wife of Fazul Mohamed, the suspected international terrorist considered responsible for the 1998 attacks against the US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Fazul Mohamed apparently entered Kenya from Somalia, where according to Kenyan and US intelligence sources (never really confirmed), he worked with the Islamic Courts.

For weeks the Kenyan police presided the border arresting and transferring to Nairobi (just on Wednesday another 5 were intercepted) Somalis suspected of ties to the Islamic Courts. Police operations and roundups were conducted also in the Somali neighbourhood of Nairobi, always in search of suspected supporters of the Courts.

In the past days, speaking at a meeting with some Italian delegations present at the World Social Forum of Nairobi, the special envoy of the Italian government for Somalia, Mario Raffaelli, stated that “each night in the Somali neighbourhood of Nairobi the police conduct raids and take people away to who knows where. The same happens daily also in Mogadishu”.

At least some thirty Somalis arrested in Kenya, almost all charged with illegal entry in the country, were recently expelled and sent to Mogadishu, where they were handed over to the interim government that at the end of December took control of the Somali capital, and then the rest of the nation, from the Islamic Courts.

The same fate may also be faced by Abukar Omar Aden, a wealthy Somali businessman (administrator of the natural El Man port and of other lucrative businesses in Mogadishu before and during the Courts administration) considered the ’treasurer’ of the Courts, arrested at the start of the month on the border with Kenya. Aden, 72 and in a wheelchair since 2002, yesterday appeared with his son before a Nairobi court that intends to expel him for illegal entry in the country. The Defence lawyer managed to obtain a new hearing for next Monday, requesting that Aden be conceded political asylum on the basis that “his life would be in danger” if he returned to Mogadishu. [BO]

FONTE: MISNA