PRETORIA | Monday
SOUTH AFRICAN authorities said yesterday the US had forwarded a list of names of people with possible links to suspects in the attacks on New York and Washington. A senior police official said the names and number of people would not be made public.
South Africa’s government last week reaffirmed its non-military support for the international coalition against terrorism.
In 1999 South Africa arrested Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a suspect in the August 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and sent him for trial in the US. South Africa’s constitutional court later declared the extradition illegal, saying he should not have been sent to a country where he could face the death penalty.
Mohamed and a Saudi national were convicted of mass murder in connection with the bombings and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Two others have been convicted of conspiracy and also received life sentences.
Kenya has also received from the US a list of suspects some of whom are believed to have fled to Kenya or its East African neighbors, a senior police official said on Monday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the list of some 200 names was received on Monday and is being examined at the sub-regional office of Interpol in Nairobi.
Security was being tightened at Kenya’s borders with Uganda and Tanzania, its two East African neighbors.
Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who is accused by the US government of masterminding the September 11 attacks in which more than 6_000 people died, has been indicted by a US federal court in connection with the US embassy bombings. – The Guardian, Sapa
FEATURES:
Shattered World: A Daily Mail & Guardian special on the attack on the US
OFF-SITE:
The Guardian’s special report on the attacks