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R/£ Mexico nabs SA terror suspect
August 05, 2004 Edition 1
Jeremy Michaels and Peter Fabricius
A fourth suspected South African with alleged links to international terrorist organisations has been arrested in Mexico, the South African government says.
The 29-year-old, with a Muslim name, was arrested because Mexican authorities believed his travel documents were not in order.
This is the fourth South African - or holder of a South African passport - known to be detained abroad for suspected terror links.
Two Gauteng residents were arrested in Pakistan last week after a shoot-out at a house between al-Qaeda operatives and security forces.
A South African woman was arrested in Texas on July 19.
The latest arrest, on Tuesday, was disclosed at a government media conference in Pretoria yesterday.
Commissioner Rayman Lalla, head of police crime intelligence, said that as well as those being interrogated in Pakistan, two more were being questioned "elsewhere".
South Africa was trying to gain access to them. The government did not have "substantive details to say that they are al-Qaeda or not", he said.
He was trying to establish whether they were South African nationals or carrying false South African passports.
The Cape Argus reported last week that Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed, 48, had been arrested on July 19 after she attempted to board a flight at McAllen International Airport in Texas near the Mexican border.
She was carrying a South African passport with several pages torn out but no visa authorising entry into the US. She reportedly told officials she had entered the US illegally from Mexico days before. She was charged with illegal entry but denied bail as a potential flight risk and is held while the FBI questions her.
US Congressman Solomon Ortiz of Texas said Ahmed was on a federal terror watchlist, but federal officials have not confirmed this.
US authorities gave her address as Fairlands, Johannesburg. At her home, her nephew then denied she was involved in terrorism.
But yesterday Daniel Ngwepe, political counsellor at the SA embassy in Washington, said the embassy was trying to confirm whether Ahmed was South African. "The FBI is not providing us with information after repeated requests."
A Pakistan police chief said yesterday that the two suspects held there were planning attacks in South Africa, and two South African police sources said possible al-Qaeda targets identified had included parliament and the V&A Waterfront.
But government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said yesterday there was no truth to reports about plans for South African attacks.
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