Jamaican 'hate-cleric' Abdullah al-Faisal back in Kenya

Kenyan authorities said Faisal was on an international terrorist watch-list

A Jamaican-born Muslim cleric notorious for preaching racial hatred has been sent back to Nairobi by Nigeria, days after he was expelled from Kenya.

A Kenyan minister had said Abdullah al-Faisal was being deported to The Gambia after attempts to send him overland to Tanzania had failed.

Reports say that airlines refused to take him from Nigeria to The Gambia and his Nigerian transit visa expired.

Kenya said Faisal was being deported because of his "terrorist history".

The cleric served four years in a UK prison after being convicted of soliciting the murder of Jews and Hindus.

His lawyer arranged for him to speak to reporters from his prison cell in Kenya.

We don't understand why he is there [prison] because he has never been charged in court Al-Amin Kimathi Muslim Human Rights Group

"I was deported to The Gambia but when I reached Nigeria, an airline there declined to fly me to Gambia," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

Faisal's lawyers say they will go to court for an order that he should either be charged or freed.

He was arrested on 31 December after attending prayers in the coastal city of Mombasa.

Kenya's Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang said Faisal was on an international terrorist watch-list, but the cleric denied that when speaking from prison.

Mr Kajwang said on Thursday he understood that Faisal had already landed in The Gambia.

A Muslim human rights group has condemned his treatment.

"We don't understand why he is there [prison] because he has never been charged in court," said Muslim Human Rights Group head Al-Amin Kimathi.

Racial hatred

Faisal was born Trevor William Forrest in St James, Jamaica - though he left the island 26 years ago, initially living in the UK.

His parents were Salvation Army officers and he was raised as a Christian.

But at the age of 16 he went to Saudi Arabia - where he is believed to have spent eight years - and became a Muslim.

He took a degree in Islamic Studies in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, before coming back to the UK.

Faisal spent years travelling the UK preaching racial hatred urging his audience to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners.

A year after being deported from the UK in 2007, he was preaching in South Africa.

The Kenyan authorities said Faisal had arrived in Kenya on 24 December after travelling through Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Swaziland and Malawi and Tanzania.