Iran calls on Kenya to release 2 charged with planning terrorist act
| Publisher | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| Publication Date | 2 December 2016 |
| Cite as | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Iran calls on Kenya to release 2 charged with planning terrorist act, 2 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a2da3.html [accessed 21 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
December 02, 2016
Iran has urged Kenya to release two of its citizens charged by a Nairobi court with planning a terrorist act after being arrested for filming outside the Israeli embassy.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on December 2 that the two men, Nasrollah Ebrahimi and Abdolhossein Safaee, are "official lawyers of the Justice Ministry" who, he said, had traveled to Nairobi to provide legal advice to two Iranian prisoners in Kenya.
Ebrahimi and Safaee were arrested on December 1 by Kenyan antiterrorism police after filming outside the Israeli embassy, allegedly in an Iranian diplomatic car.
Ghasemi said the arrest of the two men had been the result of a "misunderstanding" after "the intervention of some third parties into the case."
He called for their immediate release.
The two men, along with a Kenyan driver who was also charged, had been to Kamiti prison outside Nairobi to visit two other Iranians serving a 15-year term for possessing explosives after being convicted in 2013.
A Kenyan court said the two were members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force and that they were plotting attacks against Western targets in Kenya.
Based on reporting by AFP , AP and IRNA
Link to original story on RFE/RL website
