POLITICS-MALAWI: Al Qaeda Suspects in ‘U.S. Custody’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tom Banda

BLANTYRE, Jun 25 2003 (IPS) - Five al Qaeda suspects arrested by Malawi over the weekend ‘have been handed to U.S. authorities’, but the Americans are not saying where they are holding them.

The decision to ‘hand them over’ comes as U.S. President George W. Bush announced his plans to visit Africa on Jul.7-12. Bush will travel to Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa.

The U.S. Embassy in the capital Lilongwe has refused to link the arrests of the suspects, including those of other al Qaeda suspects in Kenya, to Bush’s visit.

"He is not going to visit Malawi or Kenya so there’s no connection. Maybe the government of Malawi can shed more light (on their whereabouts)," said U.S. Embassy spokesperson Robbin Diallo.

Immigration officials in Malawi, however, insist that the men were not in the country.

Diallo said the U.S. and Malawi governments signed an agreement to fight terrorism soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Farhad Assani, the Director of Public Prosecutions, confirmed that the arrests of the five men were sanctioned by the U.S. government. "U.S. government identified the suspects. They requested Malawi to surrender these suspects to them for interrogation, but we don’t know where," he said.

On Tuesday, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey criticised Malawi for refusing to release their nationals following a High Court order to set them free.

Malawi lawyer Shabil Latif had succeeded in obtaining a High Court order restraining the state from deporting the five men on Sunday.

The men were arrested on Jun. 21 during a joint operation between Malawi security agents and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on suspicion of working for al Qaeda.

Latif said the governments of Turkey, Sudan and Saudi Arabia were disturbed to learn that the defence counsel had no information on the whereabouts of the five men. This came amid reports that they might have been flown to Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba where al Qaeda suspects – mainly from Afghanistan – are being kept.

"The three governments are concerned that their nationals are being detained without being told of their offence. The circumstances have prompted them to send their ambassadors to Malawi to make sense of what is happening," said Latif.

But the ministry of foreign Affairs denied knowledge of the presence of the three diplomats in the country.

On Tuesday, justice Primrose Chimwaza said the Attorney General’s office would formally hand over the case of the five suspects to the ministry of Home Affairs and Internal security, which on Wednesday kept a tight lid on the whereabouts of the men.

Enraged by the delay to release them, the Malawi Muslim community in the commercial capital Blantyre on Wednesday afternoon gathered outside the High Court premises where Justice Healy Potani was expected to grant the suspects bail at K100000 (around 1300 U.S. dollars) each.

"These men have a right to be heard in a court," said Sheikh Muhammed Mussa, a supporter.

He said they suspect that the five had already been handed to the CIA and flown to Guantanamo Bay.

Mussa said they were planning a peaceful demonstration to the offices of the Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) to admonish the organisation’s laxity and delay to act in the matter.

When contacted for comment, MAM chairperson Omar Wochi denied knowledge of any impending action by the association’s members.

But sources close to MAM say the organisation refused to make a stand on the issue for fear that the five men could be al Qaeda operatives.

On Monday, Potani rejected an application from government to overrule his earlier order not to deport the suspects.

The suspects – two Turkish, Ibrahim Habaci and Arif Ulusalam; a Sudanese national, Mahmud Salidat Issa; a Kenyan, Khalifa Abdi Hassam and a Saudi, Fahad al-Bahli – run a string of Islamic charities and businesses in Malawi.