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Iran urges Kenya to release Iranians charged on terror plot

Politics Materials 2 December 2016 16:53 (UTC +04:00)
A day after reports came about the arrest of two Iranians in Kenya, charged on terror plot against Israeli embassy, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has called on Nairobi to release both of them “immediately”
Iran urges Kenya to release Iranians charged on terror plot

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 2

By Emil Ilgar – Trend:

A day after reports came about the arrest of two Iranians in Kenya, charged on terror plot against Israeli embassy, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has called on Nairobi to release both of them “immediately”.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said the arrested people are lawyers of two other Iranians sentenced to 15 years prison in 2013 on the same charges, Mehr reported Dec. 2.

Two Iranians and their Kenyan driver, who worked for the Iranian embassy in Nairobi, were charged on Dec. 1 with collecting information for a terrorist act after filming the Israeli embassy, Reuters quoted lawyers Thursday.

Seyyed Nasrollah Ebrahimi and Abdolhosein Safaei and their Kenyan driver Moses Keyah Mmboga “were found taking video clips of the Israeli embassy... for the use in the commission of a terrorist act”, according to a charge sheet produced in court.

The three men were in a car belonging to the Iranian embassy when they were arrested on Tuesday, the court papers said. The diplomatic status of the two Iranians was unclear.

Qasemi said the two Iranians were released after a diplomatic conversation on December 1, but a “third party” interfered and Kenyan police arrested them again.

“My clients pleaded not guilty and have been detained by the ATPU [Kenya's Anti Terrorism Police Unit] for further interrogation,” defence lawyer Cohen Amanya told Reuters after the men’s court appearance.

Kenya has suffered repeated militant attacks in recent years, but those were mainly carried out by ethnically Somali militants.

In 2002, 15 people died when an Israeli-owned hotel was bombed in the coastal town of Mombasa, while two missiles were fired at an Israeli jet, narrowly missing it.

In 2013, a Kenyan court jailed two Iranians for life on terrorism-related charges, including possessing explosives. The sentence was reduced to 15 years on appeal.

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