Kenya Halts Extradition of Embassy Blast Suspect

After claims that the suspect had been tortured and unlawfully detained, a Kenyan high court has stopped the FBI from extraditing a Kenyan mechanic to the United States for further questioning about last year’s bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

The court, in the coastal city of Mombasa, ordered Friday that Ali Mohfoudh Salim be released or brought before a Kenyan court as soon as possible. It also ordered the immigration department to prevent Salim from being taken out of the country.

Salim was arrested Thursday by FBI agents who, the court was told, suspected that the mechanic’s garage could have been used to build the vehicle that transported the bomb to Nairobi.

The action to prevent Salim’s extradition marks the first time the FBI has faced a legal obstacle in its quest to arrest suspects in the Aug. 7 blast, which killed 213 people and injured more than 5,000. A simultaneous explosion at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 11.

Two suspects have been extradited to the United States in connection with the Nairobi bombing.

Kenya’s attorney general and police commissioner are under court orders to make sure that the FBI produces Salim in court Tuesday.

Lawyer Taib Ali Taib, who applied for a habeas corpus on behalf of Salim’s family, said U.S. agents had refused to be served with the court summons.

He accused the FBI of violating his client’s fundamental constitutional and human rights.

Taib said Salim had been held incommunicado for three days. He was barred from speaking to his family and denied access to legal representation, Taib said.

“We don’t mind our client being charged. Whoever committed this heinous [bombing] should face the law,” Taib said Saturday in a phone conversation from Mombasa, adding that Salim’s family was confident of his innocence. “But we insist the process of investigations must adhere to the law. If we break the law to find these people, we are no better than them. I didn’t expect this from the FBI.”

Taib said he was unaware of Salim’s whereabouts and had not had the opportunity to speak to his client since his arrest. Police have refused to disclose to Salim’s next of kin why and where he was being held, Taib said.

A six-page affidavit filed by Salim’s brother, Faiz Mohfoudh Salim, claimed that the U.S. agents seized the suspect’s passport and harassed and intimidated him during several visits to the mechanic’s workshop, beginning Tuesday. The U.S. agents were accompanied by Kenyan police.

According to the affidavit, U.S. agents interrogated Salim for 12 hours, conducted tests and took photographs at his garage, and questioned him about the body of a vehicle he had built. Salim reportedly was then arrested and detained initially at a local police station, according to his brother.

Taib said Faiz Mohfoudh Salim suspected that his brother had been tortured.

In the United States, the FBI had no comment. Kenya gave the bureau permission to operate in the country shortly after the bombing.

“Torture doesn’t have to be a beating,” Taib said. “The fact that someone has been held without access to a phone call, family or a lawyer is torture itself.”

The FBI’s hunt for suspects connected with the Nairobi bombing has caused public outcry among members of Kenya’s Islamic community, who believe that Muslims are being unfairly targeted.