Kenyan police frees 29 Ugandan suspects

Kenyan police has released 29 Ugandans it arrested last week over suspicions that they were planning to join a Somali militant group Al Shabaab, a Ugandan police spokesman said late on Wednesday.

Speaking in Kampala, Asuman Mugenyi, police spokesman told reporters that the suspects were released after the Kenyan investigators found no evidence showing that they were headed for Somalia or that they have any ties with terrorism.

He said the investigators found that the suspects had been conned of their money to get security jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mugenyi said police is now hunting for one Apollo Eperu of the nonexistent Security Placement International Group for conning the Ugandans.

Each of the suspects had been conned of 500,000 Uganda shillings (about 208 U.S. dollars) for registration and meals.

Kenyan police last week arrested 27 men and two women in Nairobi who were thought to be heading to Somalia to join Al Shabaab, a militant group fighting the Somali government.

Al Shabaab's recruitment of young people across the East African region has been a source of concern for security agencies in the region.

Several Kenyans and Ugandans are among detainees facing terrorism charges in Uganda's courts of law after they were suspected of planning and executing the twin bomb attacks in the country's capital Kampala in July 2010.

Al Shabaab, which is linked to Al Qaeda a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility of the attacks that left 76 people dead.