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There
is tension between the Kenyan and Israeli investigators
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KIKAMBALA,
Kenya,
December 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Kenya has refused to
hand any evidence from last week’s attacks
on an Israeli-owned hotel and an Israeli jetliner over to
Israel.
According
to Israeli daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, the dispute threatened
to delay the investigation into the attacks. American and Israeli
leaders both questioned Kenya’s ability to conduct a thorough probe.
Kenyan
police officials said Israeli authorities want to take pieces from a
four-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Pajero that exploded outside the hotel on
Thursday, killing 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and the bombers inside, Ha’aretz
reported.
Israel
also wants the launchers and missile casings from shoulder-launched
rockets believed used in the attempt to shoot down the Israeli charter
plane, the paper added.
Kenyan
bomb specialist Charles Jamu said “None of this
evidence is going back to Israel. This evidence is our
responsibility.”
Raanan
Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, that Kenya
had been cooperating “up to now,” but that the Kenyans weren’t
prepared for the investigation.
“They
were not geared to this kind of a threat or they don’t have the
necessary resources or technological capabilities that would enable
them to deal with that,” Gissin said.
William
Lang’at, the lead investigator, said Israeli bomb experts had asked
to “take some of the exhibits back home for forensic examination”
and the request “will be decided in due course.”
Kenya
is leading the probe into last Thursday’s bombing of an
Israeli-owned hotel here and a failed missile attack on an Israeli
charter plane taking off from nearby Mombasa airport minutes earlier,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
However,
Israeli and U.S. experts have joined the investigation.
Lang’at
said the Kenyans had all the evidence in their possession. "We
have got everything. There's nothing they have taken."
The
Kenyans say they have found parts of the bomb that blew up the
Paradise hotel as well as two shoulder-held missile launchers used in
the attack on the charter plane leaving Mombasa airport minutes
earlier.
However,
AFP journalists have seen the Israelis picking up debris from the
gutted hotel in Kikambala on the Indian Ocean coast.
On
Sunday, when a Kenyan investigator dropped and tried to pick up two
metal pieces believed to have been used in the bomb, two Israelis
grabbed them from his hands and put them in a plastic bag which they
kept.
The
incident revealed a certain tension between the Kenyan and Israeli
investigators, who appeared uneasy over how the Kenyans were handling
the evidence.
Since
around two dozen Israeli bomb experts and army officers arrived here
last Thursday, Israelis have been searching the site at will and
gathering body parts and debris into bags.
The
Kenyans have done nothing to stop them, an AFP correspondent said.
The
Kenyan and Israeli investigators were again on the hotel grounds on
Monday before they suddenly left. A guard at the scene told AFP they
were “called back for a briefing in Mombasa.”
No
other details were available.
Kenyan
police reported on Friday that witnesses said people who may have
fired the missiles fled in a white all-terrain Mitsibushi Pajero, but
there was no word yet whether they have found the car.
The
car that rammed the Paradise hotel here was a green Mitsibushi Pajero,
and police were “still searching for the Mitsubishi Pajero pieces
scattered all around in order to reconstruct it,” Lang’at said
Sunday.
The
bombing occurred, witnesses said, when three men slammed a four-wheel
drive vehicle packed with explosives into the beach hotel just as a
party of Israeli tourists was arriving.
Investigators
on Sunday held up two pieces of metal they said belonged to at least
one gas cylinder which was used in the car bomb.
Lang’at
also said the police were “still looking for parts of the bodies of
the terrorists,” and that no DNA testing had been done as of Sunday
afternoon.
Meanwhile,
Lang’at said the police were still holding six Pakistanis and four
Somalis for questioning about the bombing, but has not named them as
suspects.
Kenya
has not ruled out that Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network is
involved in the attack, but said it has nothing to link the 10
detainees to either the attacks here or Al-Qaeda.
Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday that although there was as
yet no concrete evidence directly linking Al-Qaeda with the attacks,
there were “signs” that indicated that Bin Laden’s group was
behind them, Ha’aretz reported.
Kenyan
Internal Security Minister Julius Sunkuli told a
news conference that of the 12 detainees, all foreigners, a U.S. and a
Spanish national “appear to have the least connection” to the
attacks, the paper added.
Authorities
later freed the two after questioning. The American and Spaniard were
held after trying to check out of another hotel in the area about two
hours after the blast.
