Kenya sends Islamist suspects to Somalia

[Jacaylbaro]

NAIROBI, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Kenya has sent about 30 prisoners shackled hand-and-foot on a plane to Somalia after arresting them near the border on suspicion of belonging to an ousted Islamist movement, their representatives said on Sunday.

 

The deportees, who a lawyer said included one Canadian and three Eritreans, were among scores of suspected Islamist fighters and supporters rounded up by Kenyan forces after a war that ended the movement's six-month rule of south Somalia.

 

Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said they included some senior officials of the former Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC). "We thank the Kenyan government and other Horn of Africa nations for their outstanding cooperation dealing with terrorism issues," he said.

 

The deportees arrived in Mogadishu late on Saturday and were put in custody of Ethiopian soldiers, government sources said.

 

"They were shackled with chains on their feet and handcuffs on their hands behind their backs," said Kenyan lawyer Harun Ndubi told Reuters. "Ethiopia regards them as an enemy, so I really fear they could face the same fate as Saddam Hussein now. Somalia is a failed state. How can they be given justice there?"

 

Ndubi said 34 were deported, while Dinari said 30.

 

Some residents said the Islamists had been taken to the Halane military base near Mogadishu airport, which was notorious for executions during the rule of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, toppled in 1991. Somali officials could not confirm that.

 

Ndubi said the transferred prisoners included a Canadian citizen, Bashir Ahmed Makhtat, who had told him he ran a second-hand clothes business in the region and was trying to cross the border overland when the war blocked other routes.

 

Three other prisoners were from Eritrea -- Ethiopia's arch-foe -- and had also identified themselves as businessmen, involved in the charcoal trade, he said.

[Xoogsade]

You have to ask what crime have these good citizens of Somalia done to be handed to TFG thugs who have blood on their hands?

 

Honestly, if anything befalls upon these men it should be a bloody war.

[-Nomadique-]

Honestly I cant believe more has not been said about how ridiculously counterproductive every single decision has been for the future of Somalia. *slaps forehead*

 

Im telling you everything up until now has shown the markings of 'the man' at work. Someone must be itching for a bloody free for all - How else can we explain the never ending incompetence? :confused:

[Ebyan]

Serves them right.