Who Will Avenge the Dead?

One by one, inch by inch, country by country.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A Kenyan judge on Thursday acquitted four men charged in the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel that killed 15 people, saying prosecutors had failed to link them to the bombers or al Qaeda.

"The prosecution has not established that the four accused persons were at the scene of the murder, nor that they had met the two suicide bombers and there was a pre-arranged plan between them and the suicide bombers," Kenya High Court Justice John Osiemo said. [SNIP]

Human rights groups and Muslim organizations welcomed the decision, saying it vindicated their assertion that Kenyan police were panicked into a hurried, incompetent investigation by strong pressure from Western governments looking for results. [SNIP]

"This fact is a disgrace to the memory of those killed, Israelis and Kenyans, and it strengthens the fear that terrorist organizations around the world will view this as support for their criminal actions."

Three Israelis and 12 Kenyans were killed after two suicide bombers broke through barriers outside the Paradise Hotel with a 4-wheel drive vehicle full of explosives on Nov. 28, 2002.

At almost the same time, a missile was fired but missed an Israeli airliner leaving the airport in the nearby Kenyan resort town of Mombasa. [SNIP]

So far, no one has been convicted in either case, the most high-profile terror cases in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. [SNIP]

"For two years, my father has been tortured. But now he is out and I am a little bit happy. But, inshallah (God willing) God will avenge them," said Saidi, [defendant Aboud] Rogo's [Mohammed] 10-year-old son.

The murderer(s) of my kinsmen and the Israelis are the ones who deserve the effects of vengeance, young Saidi. And, as was so after the 1998 bombings, one wonders how many Kenyans and Israelis live with horrible injuries as a result of the 2002 Kenyan terror incident. Let’s talk actual torture, young Saidi.

(One also wonders whether the Kenyans are caving in ala the Spaniards and the Filipinos after horrific terrorist acts.)

In the meantime, Islamists feel just a little bit freer to murder the abid, take over their continent and have a foothold from which to wage war on the Great Satan and the Little one.

If Bob Geldof wants to do something to help Africans, help them get rid of that particular pestilence.

(Thanks to LGF)

Fair Trade?

Comments

[ben]

Maybe they're not guilty. The fact that someone was accused, locked up and tortured doesn't prove much. That they were (probably) tortured for some time and still no evidence emerged suggests innocence rather than guilt, surely. Calling for the punishment of people acquitted by the courts seems a bit unfair.

[StinKerr]

I agree with part of what you say, ben. Maybe they are indeed innocent.

Let me point out that the same thinking that causes you to believe, without question or evidence that they were tortured, can lead some people to believe that they're guilty despite being acquitted.

[ben]

I know. I was thinking about that after I posted. I did say probably, which perhaps should have been possibly. But I think you do have to be careful of going down the Israeli route of consistently referring to anyone who has been killed, arrested, imprisoned without trial etc. as a terrorist. The demonising and dehumanising effect of this practice makes possible the kind of actions that do not befit free, civilised nations.
An example of this is the people released from Guantanamo Baywatch, without charge of any kind, after a few years of captivity without trial, legal representation or explanation. If they were terrorists they would surely have been charged, wouldn't they? Yet referring to them as terrorists, or the new term of unlawful combatants(?), allows people to be comfortable with their treatment.

[StinKerr]

illegal combatants.