Trouble in Kenya
January 11, 2010Last week there was trouble in Nairobi, Kenya. It was recently reported that Kenya had deported a Jamaican-born Muslim cleric. Abdullah Ibrahim el-Faisal was was once imprisoned in England for racial hatred. He was deported to Gambia, says Kenyan Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang.
Abdullah Ibrahim el-Faisal was said to be an unwanted person in Kenya by Otieno Kajwang. It was also said that he was a threat to Kenya’s security because of terrorism. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe says, “Anti-terror police picked up Abdullah Ibrahim el-Faisal days ago after he passed into the country unnoticed”
El-Faisal has had a very bad criminal background. He was sentenced in England to nine years in jail in 2003 for racial hatred and inciting others to commit murder. He had also been arrested a year earlier. According to British news reports, he was paroled in 2007 after serving half his sentence and deported to Jamaica. His lawyers in England had asked the judge in his case to consider the Muslim convert “misguided rather than malicious.”
Later, El-Faisal entered Kenya from Tanzania, Kiraithe. The thing is, it was not clear when. Kiraithe found that there had been lapses of time between Kenya’s police and immigration that allowed the El-Faisal to come into Kenya.
Kenyan Muslim groups have protested the deportation El-Faisal. Al-Amin Kimathi, the executive coordinator for the Muslim Forum of Human Rights, says “He is being treated unfairly…He has committed no crimes in Jamaica and has not committed any crimes in Kenya. There is a double standard at work.”
