Muslims released after extradition rejected

Kenyan police on Tuesday released seven men who had been held on suspicion of having links with Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the 11 September attacks in the US, Kenyan news organisations reported.

Mombasa businessman Ali Shariff Sagaaf and six others were released following a High Court order barring American investigators from extraditing the men to the United States for further questioning, they said.

The Daily Nation newspaper quoted judge David Onyancha of Mombasa High Court as saying that Kenya did not have a terrorism treaty with the US, and that police were also barred from handing the men over to the American FBI in Kenya.

The ruling follows a police crackdown in the coastal town of Mombasa at the weekend, in which at least 50 people were arrested. Police have denied that the arrests were targeted at suspected terrorists, and said they were part of routine efforts to combat crime in Kenya's second city, the report stated.

The Islamic leaders who took the case to the High Court have condemned the arrests, which they said were aimed at persecuting Muslims and linking them to Bin Laden.

A spokesman for the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) told IRIN on Thursday that it was not clear exactly how many of the detainees had been released. "We don't have details of who and how many of them have been released. We are still trying to find out what is going on," he said.

Bin Laden, who has been sheltered by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, is also the prime suspect in the August 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, in which more than 224 people were killed.

Khelef Khalifa, head of the Mombasa-based Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), told IRIN on Thursday that tension was growing among Muslim youths in the city.

"The government has a wrong attitude towards Muslims in this country. Most of the people being arrested have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism," he said.

Twice in the past month, Kenyan Muslims, who make up 30 percent of the country's population of 28 million, have staged street demonstrations in the country's major towns to protest against US-led air strikes on Afghanistan.

Many of those detained in Mombasa routinely received money from their relatives working in the Gulf states, and were not involved in a web of financial transactions and cash transfers thought to be linked to Bin Laden's al-Qaeda (Al-Qa'idah) network, the BBC quoted Sheikh Ali Shee, chairman of the Kenyan Council of Imams, as saying.

The weekend arrests had coincided with President Daniel arap Moi's visit to the US to attend the 56th Session of the UN General Assembly, where he reaffirmed his support for the US-led campaign against terrorism.

"Kenyans experienced at first hand the devastating effects of terrorism" after the 1998 Nairobi bomb attack, he said.

"Kenya understands well the pain of those affected by the recent attacks in the joint states of America, and fully supports the efforts being led by the president of the United States of America, George W Bush, and his administration to fight terrorism in all its forms," Moi added.

The chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, Mwai Kibaki, condemned the arrests and demanded the immediate release of all suspects still in police custody.

"We demand that the government releases Muslim citizens being held under trumped-up charges, and fully explain to Kenyans what plans we as a country have put in place for the fight against terrorism," Kibaki said in a statement.