Kenya faces ‘rendition’ accusation
Muslim activists say country plans to send controversial cleric to unknown country.
Muslim rights activists say Kenyan authorities, who they believe are holding a controversial Muslim religious leader, plan to send him to an unknown country in what they say amounts to “rendition”.
Kenyan officials had earlier said the cleric, Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, had already been expelled.
But activists believe he continues to be held at Nairobi’s international airport because several other countries have refused to grant him a transit visa.
An immigration ministry spokesperson said a deportation order had been signed but refused to name the destination.
El-Faisal, who in the 1990s preached at the same London mosque attended by Richard Reid – the convicted “shoe bomber” who failed to blow up a jet liner in 2001 – was previously jailed in Britain for inciting murder and racial hatred.
Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons reports from Nairobi.