Malawi hands five al-Qaida suspects to US

Five men suspected of funnelling money to al-Qaida have been handed over to the US by the impoverished southern African nation of Malawi.

The men, all foreigners, had been on a CIA “watch list” since al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Malawian officials said.

One is the head of a Sudanese charity and another runs the Malawian branch of a Saudi Arabian charity, authorities in Blantyre said. Two of the men were from Turkey and one was an Islamic scholar from Kenya, they said.

The Malawian government has refused to discuss in detail the allegations against the five, saying that to do so would threaten state security.

It was not clear where the men were taken after they were spirited out of Malawi by the US. They had been arrested there on Sunday.

Malawi had not previously been a major focus of investigations into Osama bin Laden’s terror network.