An al-Qaeda suspect accused of involvement in terrorist attacks in Kenya in 2002 has been handed over to US custody by Kenyan authoirites and transported to Guantanamo Bay.

 

Abdul Malik was transferred to the US military prison due to the "significant threat" he represented, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington.

He said Malik had admitted involvement in a hotel bombing and for trying to shoot down an Israeli jetliner with 271 people on board.

 

The attack on Mombassa's Hotel Paradise, a resort popular with Israeli tourists, killed over a dozen people.

Whitman said Malik was held at a US military facility, not a secret CIA prison, and was interviewed by US law enforcement before being sent to Guantanamo over the weekend.

 

"He is a one of these support figures in the al-Qaeda East Africa network. He knows some very important people" Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman

Abdul Malik is the first detainee to be transferred to Guantanamo since September 2006, when 14 al-Qaeda suspects arrived from secret US prisons overseas.

 

Whitman said Abdul Malik was considered "dangerous" but not of "high-value", a term US officials use for captured suspects who have a significant effect on al-Qaeda operations and are capable of providing high-quality intelligence.

 

"He is a one of these support figures in the al-Qaeda East Africa network. He knows some very important people," another unnamed American official said.

 

Kenya has rounded up scores of suspected Islamist fighters and supporters since a war ended a six-month Islamist rule of Mogadishu and southern Somalia.