Radical Muslim cleric stuck in Kenya after visa requests are denied

Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal is being expelled from Kenya because of his history of being involved in terrorist activities, Kenya’s immigration minister said. Britain has said that Faisal’s teachings heavily influenced one of the bombers who carried out the 2005 transport network bombings in London that killed 52 people.

Faisal - who has called for Americans, Hindus, and Jews to be killed - traveled from Nigeria and through Angola, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Tanzania by road before coming to Kenya, said a Kenyan official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the issue.

The official said it is likely Faisal was trying to avoid detection because he is on a watch list of terror suspects.

South Africa and the United Kingdom have declined to grant him transit visas, the official said. The visas would allow Faisal to connect to flights to Jamaica, which has said it would accept him but would keep a close eye on him. Tanzania also declined to grant him a visa, despite the fact he entered Kenya from Tanzania.

Faisal served four years in Britain for inciting murder and stirring racial hatred by urging followers to kill Americans, Hindus, and Jews.

Internet postings purportedly written by a Nigerian man now charged with trying to bomb a US airliner on Christmas Day referred to Faisal as a cleric he had listened to. The posting was made in March 2005 under the name “farouk1986.’’ The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was born that year. Officials have not verified that the postings were written by Abdulmutallab, but details from the posts match his personal history.

Faisal preached at London’s Brixton mosque in the 1990s before being ejected by mosque authorities because of his support for violent jihad. The mosque was attended at different times by Richard Reid, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison after a failed 2001 attempt to blow up an airplane, and convicted Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.

He later toured widely in Britain preaching and selling audio tapes of his sermons. The British government has said he was a key influence on Jermaine Lindsay, who was involved in the London bombings.

Faisal was arrested in Kenya on New Year’s Eve by antiterror police as he was leaving a mosque in the coastal town of Mombasa. Al-Amin Kimathi, an official of the Muslim human rights forum, said that police told Faisal at the time of his arrest that he had violated his visa terms by preaching in mosques.

In order for Faisal to fly to Jamaica he would need a transit visa to allow him to connect to flights in the United States, Europe, or Canada, said Kennedy Buhere, a spokesman for the Ministry of Immigration.

Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang said he had signed Faisal’s deportation papers on Saturday. Kajwang told the Associated Press he was deporting Faisal because he has a history of being involved in terrorist activities.

Kajwang said when Faisal arrived in the country on Dec. 24, he was not stopped at immigration offices based in Lunga-Lunga, a Kenya border point with Tanzania. Immigration officials were not able to do a background check because their computers were not connected to a database.