Deported cleric a security threat

NAIROBI – A radical Muslim cleric who once led a London mosque attended by convicted terrorists was deported to Gambia yesterday because he posed a serious threat to Kenya’s security, the immigration minister said.

Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal had not committed crimes in Kenya nor was he wanted in other countries, but Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang cited the cleric’s history of radicalism and links with terrorism.’What we have is his history, you can call it rumours … but these are serious threats to our security,’ he said. ‘It is in the public’s interest not to have him here.’Britain has said that el-Faisal’s teachings heavily influenced one of the bombers who carried out the 2005 transport network bombings in London that killed 52 people. The Jamaican-born cleric has called for Americans, Hindus and Jews to be killed.El-Faisal’s deportation to the West African nation of Gambia had been delayed because several countries, including the United States, had denied him a transit visa.A Kenyan official said el-Faisal was put on a Kenya Airways flight for Lagos, Nigeria yesterday.South Africa and Britain had also declined to grant him transit visas after his deportation orders were made on Saturday.El-Faisal had travelled to Kenya from Nigeria through Angola, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique and Tanzania. He said it was likely el-Faisal travelled into Kenya by road to avoid detection since he is on an international watch list.Kajwang said the deportation was legal because el-Faisal should never have been granted entry into Kenya since his name was on a terror watch list.El-Faisal arrived in the country on December 24 and was not stopped at immigration offices based in Lunga-Lunga, a Kenya border point with Tanzania. Kajwang said immigrations officials were not able to do a background check because their computers were not connected to a database, which had been shut down to install new software.El-Faisal preached at London’s Brixton mosque in the 1990s before being ejected by mosque authorities because of his support for violent jihad. The mosque was attended by Richard Reid, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison after a failed 2001 attempt to blow up an airplane, and convicted September 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui. – Nampa-AP