Kenya handed over a suspected member of the al-Qaeda terror network to United States officials on Wednesday and identified him as Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed.
National Security Minister Chris Murungaru said Hemed had participated in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania in which 231 people, including 12 Americans, were killed.
He said Hemed had provided useful information related to the attacks.
Hemed, who is said to have used the aliases Ngaka and Chuck Norris, also gave investigators ”useful leads” on last year’s November 28 attacks on the Kenyan coast that killed 11 Kenyans and three Israeli tourists, as well as on ”possible future terrorist plans in the region”, Murungaru said.
Earlier this month, the US and Britain issued travel alerts for East Africa warning that al-Qaeda operatives were still active in the region.
Hemed was seized by Somali gunmen in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, on March 18, and was handed over to Kenyan authorities.
Murungaru said Hemed was en route to the US on Wednesday because all ”the arrested terrorists connected to the [1998] attacks were tried in the United States.”
A US federal court convicted four men in May 2001 for their role in the embassy bombings and sentenced them to life in prison.
US officials in Nairobi refused all comment on Hemed.
Hemed’s nationality is not clear. But Murungaru said he has ”claimed” to be Kenyan and Afghani as well as from several other East African countries.
Last week US officials in Washington said the man in Kenyan custody was thought to be a low- or mid-level al-Qaeda operative who is suspected of having played a role in the 1998 bombings.
The November attacks were first claimed by the previously unknown Army of Palestine, but al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility. – Sapa-AP