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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Framed as terrorist agents |
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| Halima |
| 07/02/03 at 04:15:11 |
| From the Daily Naition, a local daily Kenyan Newspaper. Website: www.nationmedia.com Wednesday July 02, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEDNESDAY MAGAZINE HOME -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Framed as terrorist agents Proving their innocence turned out to be a long and terrifying experience By NIXON NG'ANG'A Blaring sirens ruptured the early morning calm as six cars closed in on Ishamel Waithaka Juma*. He was driving to work on a Monday morning when the flashing of the blue lights on the police vehicles blinded him momentarily, then he saw the dark figures of men in jackets leaning by the car doors with their guns aimed at him. A stream of instructions rushed out from all around. Waithaka found himself raising his hands in surrender. The gunmen approached him cautiously. Now, only one officer was barking out orders. "Come out! Turn around! Hands on the roof of the car! Legs astride!" The slightest hesitation would prompt a shooting, he was warned. He was frisked thoroughly and roughly, and with no weapons found on him, pushed into one of the cars and driven off to Gigiri Police Station. He would later learn his captors were criminal investigation officers. At the station, a senior officer informed Waithaka that he was under arrest. The reason: he was a suspected terrorist. "I was a suspected terrorist, or at least an accomplice to terrorists," says Waithaka. "They claimed I had taken some pictures to plan the bombing of a military facility." Waithaka, a photography teacher at a private Nairobi school, had been driving on Thika Road with a friend one Saturday in September 2001, scouting for buildings with unique architectural designs. Just before Kahawa Barracks, he saw a building that attracted his interest. He parked by the roadside, and clicked several shots. The building was at least one kilometre away from the military barracks' perimeter fence, and it did not occur to him that his action would raise temperatures all the way up to Whitehall in London. Unknown to him, in the building’s background was a military facility in which the British government had an interest. The security cameras picked out his car’s registration number, and investigators traced it to him. When they caught up with him, it did not help matters that the pictures were taken just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in America. His name did not help either. Although a devout Christian, his second name is also common among Muslims. The terrorist hunters would insist that he was a Muslim, the religion terrorist hunters in the West have decided their suspects invariably belong to. He was held at the station for two days. The officers would not allow him to contact his relatives or his employer. On the third day, he was driven to his house in Embakasi – overlooking the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. British and American officers turned his house upside down – and they found exactly what they were looking for – the pictures in his possession. He had lived with his family near the airport for three years, and had taken many pictures of aircraft from the comfort of his house. A British Airways plane picture sent the officers into paroxysms of excitement. "You really mean to bomb BA? Why are you people so much against Kenya’s friends!" a shocked officer asked. Although Waithaka's collection of photographs included those of several aircraft, among them some African airlines, the British Airways one was the only picture that took the officers' interest. There were two computers, and two video cameras Waithaka insists belonged to his sisters. They were all taken away. "The officers said I was living beyond my means and wanted to know who was financing me," he says. "They also took all unprocessed reels of film." He was held in the police cells for three more days before being freed on police bond. His freedom turned out to be erratic and tormenting. "They would detain me at their pleasure. On several occasions, I was released to go home during the day only for the officers to come for me in the middle of the night." They demanded names of Waithaka's terrorists "comrades" and their targets. Initially, the foreign officers were content to retreat to the background and leave the interrogation to Kenyan officers. The issue of the foreigners interests, however, pervaded the questioning. "They asked me whether I had been to any of their embassies or offices of their organisations like Oxfam or USAid. They would not take No for an answer." And the foreigners were growing impatient. Desperate for progress, they took over the show. The interrogations shifted to the American Embassy. By the time Waithaka was finally charged with contravening the Official Secrets Act almost an year later, his life was in a shambles. He was out of a job. His cameras, which used to bring him additional income, were in the officers' custody as part of police exhibits. His computers had been destroyed. And his friends had started giving him a wide berth. Early this year, a Nairobi court ruled that he had contravened the Official Secrets Act by taking the photographs, and ordered him to pay a Sh15,000 fine or serve six months in jail. His family helped him to pay the fine. He had exhausted all his savings on his lawyer's fees. Officers who had been working on the case advised him against appealing. He is still trying to pick up the pieces of his life. Waithaka is not alone. On March 12, this year, Moses Maina Muchanga opened the door to his flat in Fortwal, Texas, and was confronted by three officers from the Internal Naturalisation Services – the US equivalent of the Immigration Department. The 22-year-old aviation student at the Delta Qualiflight Aviation College was not amused at being woken up in the wee hours of a cold morning. He had wanted to know who the visitors were since he seldom had guests. The questions from the stern officers were strange and annoying. "They asked me what I knew about Jihad, why I had chosen the aviation course, who was paying the expensive fees and what crime we were planning with my 'fellow' Arabs," he says. Maina poses in front of an aircraft at the Delta Qualiflight Aviation College last year. The last question was particularly baffling. A Kikuyu born in Nairobi's Karen, Maina is light-skinned and his hair has a natural curl. Even then, he thought it preposterous for anyone to mistake him for an Arab. But the officers insisted he was just another lying Arab fundamentalist. They ordered him to accompany them to Euless, an INS holding for illegal immigrants. He was under arrest but unlike in Hollywood movies, nobody read him his rights or told him why he was being arrested. After a night at Euless, he was moved to the Dallas Immigration Holding under tight security, his hands in cuffs, his legs in manacles. It was at Dallas that he would have three charges read to him: He was not a US citizen; he was an illegal Kenyan immigrant; he lacked the I-94, a temporarily identity card for students. A Dallas court bonded him for $10,000 (about Sh700,000) but he had no money. His pleas to be allowed to telephone his father back home or his college to raise the cash fell on deaf ears. He was detained for three days at the Dallas County Jail. Still shackled, he was later moved in a truck to Haskell, some 450 kilometres from Dallas. His new lodging was a 12 by 14 foot cell meant for eight people – but it held double that number, mostly hard core criminals. "Once you get in their jails, you realise you have been watching too many movies. In reality, they are not radically unlike ours. You sleep on the bare floor, breakfast is a slice of hard toast and wishy-washy juice. Lunch is a measly portion served at 11am. Supper, at 5 pm, is not any better." The authorities decided to deport him. Maina was moved to a deportation centre where there were some 500 people, among them four Kenyans. Those scheduled for deportation were mainly black Muslims and Arabs. Maina had made another tactical error: he had hired a black lawyer. Some Kenyans in the US heard of his ordeal and arranged for him to get one. Maina claims racial discrimination is rife in Dallas and the rest of the Texas state. The judicial system was too condescending to his lawyer who was often treated as a co-accused. Judges listened to the lawyer with a sneer. The authorities seemed to be preoccupied with fears that he would sneak back to Texas after deportation. "After orders of my deportation, my father sent a North West Airlines ticket to Nairobi through Fedex on the April 25. But INS held on to the ticket, claiming that I planned to get off the plane at Detroit since the flight was not direct. "They also retained another one from United Airlines, this time claiming I would alight at Michigan." Only after he had secured a direct BA flight to Nairobi – on May 14 – was he allowed to go home. It meant his father spent Sh264,000 to bring his son home. The tickets that were not travelled on are not refundable. But Maina, who already held a Private Pilot's Licence from the Kenya School of Flying, is very bitter. He says grounds for his arrests were spurious and only motivated by his "Arabic" looks and the fact he was doing aviation. He claims INS officers had assured him that his I-94 form would be renewed "soon". Maina had informed them of its expiry two weeks before his arrest. He blames the officers' chicanery for not allowing him to pick his visa before arresting him. The visa was to expire in August this year and by then, he would have completed the 20 flight hours required for his commercial pilot's licence. He was not allowed back into his apartment for the document that carried proof that he was legally in the US. Maina's father, Brown Muchanga, runs an aircraft equipment supplies company at the Wilson Airport, Nairobi. He plans to sue the American government for the ordeal his son went through. He says that were it not for his lawyer, Patrick Lumumba, and the Foreign Affairs minister Kalonzo Musyoka, Maina would still be languishing in American jails. Minister Musyoka personally wrote to the American government complaining about the treatment Maina received. The Kenyan embassy in Washington also did some lobbying on his behalf. Muchanga is particularly bitter about the money spent on training that was not completed and is suing the US government for compensation. Maina swears he will never set foot in America again. He claims that since September 11, Kenyan in the US have become susceptible to official harassment and humiliation. It is a fate they share with many blacks, Arabs and Hispanics. Discrimination was rampant in the jail. "The white inmates would be allowed unlimited time and privacy with their visitors. But for blacks, an officer would be standing next to you, eavesdropping on your conversation and counting the seconds. Even your lawyer is not allowed talk with you in private." Immediately after the black Tuesday, the euphemism for September 11, the US authorities sent out a circular to all aviation colleges instructing that all non-American students holding the Private Pilot Licences must re-sit the tests. This came after it was discovered that some of the terrorists who flew the hijacked planes had trained in the US. Maina's case was no exception. He re-sat the test, and paid Sh1million in the US. Maina warns parents against falling for the allure of the US. He claims to have witnessed unprovoked ill-treatment of Kenyans in the US – meant to encourage them to leave. "They think if you are not in America, you are finished. I am not going back and I look forward to a very bright life here in Kenya." E-mail: wednesday@nation.co.ke (The name of one informant has been withheld to protect him.) |
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