Two South African media representatives were detained and interrogated over the weekend by Kenyan police looking for suspects after the hotel blast near Mombasa and the firing of missiles at an Israeli passenger plane last week, The Star newspaper reported on Monday.
Beauregard Tromp, an Independent Foreign Service reporter, and Mujahid Safodien, a Star photographer, were detained on Saturday evening.
According to the newspaper, the two men were not allowed to make calls to South Africa or to the SA embassy in Nairobi. Tromp was of the opinion that they were detained because they ”appeared to be of
Middle East origin”.
The report also mentioned that after two hours of questioning, the police accompanied the men to their hotel, where they searched their rooms and confiscated their passports. The men were then taken back to the police station, where Safodien tried to take photographs. The police wrestled his camera off him, manhandling him in the process.
The two men were released after three hours, and instructed to collect their passports the next morning.
Tromp said that at the conclusion of one of the interrogation sessions police told them that they had been detained ”on the basis of an informant’s information,” but would not elaborate. – Sapa