| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: Horn |
| Did ’al-Qaeda members’ have SA passports? |
| 2004-05-28 |
| Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on Wednesday promised to smash a false passport racket, after reports that people with al-Qaeda links were in possession of South African documents. Although she was personally not aware of the link with al-Qaeda, her department was in the process of devising means to eliminate the ease with which people fraudulently acquired South African passports and identity documents. She was replying to questions from journalists in Cape Town following reported comments by national police commissioner Jackie Selebi in parliament that several people who had evil intentions were arrested in South Africa five days before the recent elections. He intimated they had links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network which had sparked arrests in Syria, Jordan and Britain. Mapisa-Nqakula said: "We are aware of the potential dangers the problems (of fraudulently available IDs and passports) could cause. I am personally not aware of the links with al-Qaeda, but if the national commissioner says so, I have no reason not to believe him. What we are doing on our part is to make sure that South African IDs and passports are not accessible to criminals any more. We will do all we can to ensure that this problem is completely eliminated." She hinted that there was a need for more intelligence work in the elimination of the scourge, saying that from what had been reported it appeared that those caught were "simply nabbed in the normal course of policing at airports and so on". The use of intelligence should ensure that these people were not arrested when they were in the course of committing crime - but ahead of the commission of the act, she said. The Democratic Alliance plans to table parliamentary questions to get more information about the arrests of suspected terrorists mere days before last month’s elections. DA spokesperson Roy Jankielsohn said on Thursday that the United Nations had identified al-Qaeda as a terrorist organisation and that as a member of the United Nations South Africa has a duty to fight terrorism and assist other law enforcement agencies in apprehending terror suspects. "We will put in one or two parliamentary questions to get details of who was arrested and where and to ensure there is transparency and accountability," Jankielsohn said. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |