OWN CORRESPONDENT | Monday 8.30pm.
TANZANIAN police and FBI investigators uncovered a vital clue in their inquiry into the August 7 bomb blast in Dar es Salaam on Monday when they stumbled on a piece of metal with the vehicle’s chassis number on it.
The Tanzanian Daily Mail claims that Tanzanian and FBI investigators have managed to salvaged the van’s chassis number, which by a stroke of luck was found whole on a small piece of metal on which it was engraved.
Investigators have traced the vehicle as having been imported from Japan by Jaba Tanzania Limited, a firm which used to sell various types and makes of vehicles in Dar es Salaam and elsewhere in Tanzania.
The rest of the two-ton Nissan van, according to Daily Mail sources, was destroyed beyond recognition.
Two people, Mustafa Mahmood Said Ahmed, an Egyptian, and Rashid Saleh Hemed have been charged in Dar es Salaam on suspicion that they played a part in the blast.
A number of items, allegedly connected with the blast which include the chassis number piece and a Suzuki vehicle, have been sent to the United States for forensic tests at FBI laboratories in Washington DC.
Government sources told the Daily Mail last week that the absence of identity cards for Tanzanian citizens and other residents has contributed to the slow investigations into the blast because it is difficult to say for sure if some of the suspects were locals or foreigners since some names are similar.
For the FIB, the chassis number clue is a reminder of their investigations into the Oklahoma city bombing, whose culprit was identified by a piece of metal bearing his rented vehicle number plate.