2 killed in Kenyan Muslim protest in support of radical cleric

2 killed in Kenyan pro-radical cleric protest

NAIROBI, Kenya — At least two people were killed during a demonstration on Friday by Kenyan Muslim youth protesting the arrest of a radical Jamaican-born Muslim cleric whose teachings influenced one of the 2005 London transport system bombers.

An official with an ambulance service said a young man, who had been shot in the head, died as they took him to the main government hospital. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said they took 10 other people with bullet wounds to the hospital.

An Associated Press reporter saw the body of another young man who relatives said was 25 years old. The reporter also saw three other young men wounded in the protest being treated at a clinic near the downtown Nairobi mosque where it began after Friday prayers.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Police restricted the protesters’ movements by standing at roads leading away from the mosque. Soon after the protesters emerged from the mosque they threw stones and police fired tear gas and used water cannons to disperse the crowd. The demonstrators had planned to march to the Immigration Ministry to protest Kenya detaining Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal.

Earlier this week Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang said el-Faisal will remain in prison until Kenya is able to send him to Jamaica.

El-Faisal’s native country has said it will receive him, but no country is willing to issue him a transit visa that would allow him to make a connecting flight to Jamaica.

“This man is so dangerous no country wants to touch him,” said Alfred Mutua, the government spokesman, during a briefing on Thursday.

Britain has said that el-Faisal’s teachings heavily influenced one of the men who carried out the London bombings that killed 52 people. The cleric served four years in a British jail for inciting murder and stirring racial hatred by urging followers to kill Americans, Hindus and Jews. El-Faisal was released in 2007 and deported to Jamaica. He stayed there until early 2009 when he traveled to Africa, Jamaican officials have said.

El-Faisal arrived in Kenya on Dec. 24, but immigration officials at a border point did not know who he was because a database that has a watch list was shut down while new software was being installed. Kenyan authorities only realized he was in the country a week later.