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The Iranian ambassador Hadi Farajvand to Kenya denied claims that he tried to free two terror suspects.
On Monday the Iranians are in custody over explosives recovered in Mombasa seven years ago.
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Ambassador Farajvand instead claimed he was the victim of an extortion plot, adding that he reported the matter to Kenya’s Interior Ministry.
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Fraud scheme
“I was the one who reported to the Interior Ministry that there were two people who approached me to prepare the departure of the two Iranian nationals saying they would be released,” the Iranian ambassador stated.
He maintained that the two people asked for an unspecified amount of money from him, a request that he did not accept.
Farajvand further added that when the two people did not specify the amount of money they wanted he realised they were asking for a bribe and he did not give them the money.
Plane tickets
However, he had a difficult time trying to explain why he booked tickets for the two Iranian terror suspects about the same time the plot was being hatched.
In his defence the ambassador stated that they had reserved the tickets since the Court of Appeal had set them free but they were not going to help the suspects escape.
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“Again, the reason we book tickets earlier is because you know if you do not act on time, then the time they want to go back, the airlines might not have those seats so to be on a safe side we reserved them but that does not mean we had any other arrangements,” he explained.
The Iranian nationals, Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammed and Sayed Mansour Mousavi, are in custody pending a decision by the Supreme Court whether to release them or not.