Friday, January 1, 2010
By Mohamed Olad Hassan and
Malkhadir M. Muhumed
His release last month will hamper efforts to learn whether the incident in Mogadishu was linked to the attempted attack against the U.S.-bound plane on Christmas Day.
Gen. Ali Hassan Loyan, the Somali police commissioner, said a Somali court released the suspect Dec. 12 after ruling that officials hadn't demonstrated he intended to commit a crime. The man, whose name has not been released, said the chemicals were for processing camera film.
In light of the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound plane, Loyan said Somali authorities would share information and the confiscated materials with U.S. officials.
"Somalia's federal government affirms that it is ready to double its cooperation with the countries in the world, particularly with America, for it is clear that the incident that happened in Mogadishu and the one that happened in a region in America are similar," Loyan said at a news conference in the Somali capital.
The Somali case drew little attention before the attempted attack on the U.S.-bound plane. The Homeland Security Department did not learn of the November incident at Mogadishu's international airport until Wednesday, when U.S. officials began investigating for links between it and the Detroit case.
A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident has similarities to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound plane. The Somali was said to have a syringe, liquid and powdered chemicals -- tools similar to those used by the Nigerian suspect on Northwest Airlines Flight 253.
The Somali suspect was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before boarding the Daallo Airlines plane bound for the northern Somali city of Hargeisa. The plane was then headed to Djibouti and Dubai.
Source: AP, January 1, 2010