Prosecutor: Radical Muslim cleric is being flown back to Jamaica

Kenya flies radical cleric back to Jamaica

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan government officials made contradictory statements Thursday about radical Muslim cleric had been flown out of the country after a court ordered them to say why he was being held.

The case concerns Jamaican-born Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, who once led a British mosque attended by convicted terrorists — and served four years in a British jail for inciting murder and stirring racial hatred by urging followers to kill Americans, Hindus and Jews.

In 2007, Britain deported him to Jamaica. In 2009, he toured several African countries, until he was arrested last month in Kenya. Prosecutors say el-Faisal was encouraging Kenyan youth to join al-Shabab, an extremist Islamic group in neighboring Somalia.

An organization called the Muslim Human Rights Forum filed suit on behalf of el-Faisal, asking the country’s High Court to stop his proposed deportation. The court ordered the government to produce el-Faisal in court Thursday and state the reasons it was holding him.

But a prosecutor told the court that el-Faisal was no longer in custody.

“I have been told by the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit officers that the subject is no longer within the jurisdiction of the court,” Prosecutor Edward Okello said. “He has left the country and his destination is Jamaica.”

Harun Ndubi, a lawyer for the Muslim Human Rights Forum, expressed shock at el-Faisal’s departure. He asked the court to demand documents giving details of the flight and saying who from the anti-terrorism police unit accompanied him.

But hours later, in interviews with two independent TV stations, Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang said el-Faisal was still in the country, discussing the terms of his deportation.

“The position, as I came in here, was that we were still negotiating with the airlines and the countries that would give us transit” through to Jamaica, Kajwang told KTN. “I had no information that he had left.”

In a document filed by the prosecution and seen by The Associated Press, the anti-terrorism police unit argued that el-Faisal was encouraging Kenyan youth to help al-Shabab. The U.S. State Department has designated the group as a terrorist organization and believes it has links with al-Qaida.

“Upon entry into Kenya, the subject went to Mombasa where he met known terrorist sympathizers and between December 24 and 31 December he was involved in radicalization of the Kenyan youth to join jihad in Somalia,” said a sworn statement by Charles Ogeto of the anti-terrorism police unit.

British authorities say el-Faisal’s teachings heavily influenced one of the men who carried out the London transport bombings in 2005 that killed 52 people.

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Associated Press writer Tom Odula in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.