Two Iranian men were charged in a Kenyan court on Thursday with collecting information to plan a terrorist act after allegedly being caught with video footage of the Israeli Embassy in Nairobi.
State Prosecutor Duncan Ondimu said in court on Thursday that Sayed Nasrollah Ebrahim and Abdolhosein Gholi Safaee were arrested Tuesday in an Iranian diplomatic car while taking the pictures of the Israeli mission using a mobile phone, including when they were intercepted.
They were detained in the capital, Nairobi after they had come from visiting Kamiti Prison where they saw two other Iranians who have been jailed for 15 years on terrorism charges.
A Kenyan driver, Moses Keyah Mmboga, who was chauffeuring the vehicle belonging to the Iranian Embassy has been charged along with the suspects and also faces a separate charge of “abetting terrorism”, Ondimu said.
In June 2013 a Kenyan court convicted two Iranian nationals of being Quds agents plotting attacks against Western targets in Kenya and they were sentenced to life in prison. That sentence was reduced on appeal in February to 15 years imprisonment.
Kenyan anti-terror officials said the two Iranians are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, an elite and secretive unit.
Kenya has previously been the site of terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. In 2002, terrorists bombed a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city, after a large group of Israeli tourists had arrived. 13 people were killed in the attack, including three Israelis.
