Iranians with fake Israeli passports arrested at JKIA
What you need to know:
- The two were taken to court Friday, but were denied the chance to take pleas, as the matter undergoes further investigations by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and ATPU.
- The two, according to sources at the immigration Department are aged between 19 and 20 years. The moment they were arrested, the immigration department contacted Jerusalem.
Two Iranian nationals are being held by the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) after they were arrested on Thursday at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), as they tried to travel with stolen Israeli passports.
The two were arrested when immigration officers at the airport discovered they were using forged Israeli passports under the Jewish names of Avshalom Tsabari and Adi Larian and were planning to travel to Tel Aviv through Brussels by Brussels Airlines.
Ministry of Interior spokesman Mwenda Njoka said the two were arrested just after they had submitted their passports for clearance.
“Immigration officers who were vigilant discovered that their details did not match what was contained in their passports and that is when they were arrested,” Mr Njoka said.
The two were taken to court Friday, but were denied the chance to take pleas, as the matter undergoes further investigations by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and ATPU.
“The two units are trying to establish how they entered the country and whether they are linked to terrorism,” Njoka said.
The two, according to sources at the immigration department, are aged between 19 and 20 years. The moment they were arrested, the immigration department contacted Jerusalem.
“We scanned and sent copies of their passports to the Israeli Ministry of Interior. We realized that the two passports were actually originals stolen from Jews who had travelled abroad,” he said.
The photos in the two passports, he said, had been removed and replaced with the two suspects’ (photos) but all the other details remained the genuine owners’” said the officer, who cannot be named.
The two are being detained in the country, as both the Kenyan and the Israeli Interior ministries carry out their investigations, as it remains unclear whether they were planning to commit a terrorist attack.
On the same day, two Syrians were also arrested at JKIA for using forged Bulgarian and Greek passports. The two were also in possession of fake Algerian and Moroccan passports.
Since the two Syrians spoke neither English nor Swahili, an interpreter is being sought to enable their prosecution. Their case is also being investigated further by the NIS and ATPU.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku praised immigration officers at JKIA for their vigilance that led to the arrest of the four suspicious individuals.
