Deputy President William Ruto’s ally Harun Aydin, who was to accompany him to Uganda, is an investor who has visited Kenya severally in the past, the Turkish Embassy in Nairobi has said.
According to reports by the Nation, the Embassy was however reluctant to divulge the details of his investments, only insisting that he was a “law-abiding citizen with no criminal records”.
The Turk first visited Kenya in 2018 and this year alone has made a total of six trips to Kenya originating from Istanbul, Cairo and Addis.
In an interview on Wednesday, August 4, 2021, Ruto said the incident where he was barred from flying out to Uganda was meant to belittle him, and not in any way connected to Aydin.
The presence of Harun Aydin at the airport is said to have raised a red flag in government prompting security agencies to advise that he (Ruto) should be barred from traveling.
Mr Aydin was previously arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, in October 2001 with luggage containing camouflage clothing, a chemical-weapons protection suit, a ski mask and materials to produce an explosive detonator.
Read: DP Ruto says Wilson Incident Meant to Belittle him, Defends Turkish National Harun Aydin
Also found in his luggage were CD-ROM with a training video for Islamic holy warriors, a suicide note to his wife and a last testament.
According to The New York Times, Aydin was at that time a leading member of a militant group in Cologne, Federation of Islamic Associations and Communities, led by Muhammed Metin Kaplan alias the caliph of Cologne.
Before the arrest, Mr Aydin had been sentenced to four years in jail after he was found guilty of advocating the murder of a rival, Halil Ibrahim Sofu, but was later acquitted.
It was alleged that Mr Aydin’s group, Federation of Islamic Associations and Communities, had contacts with Osama bin Laden and his network, Al Qaeda, in 1996 and 1997.
The Federation of Islamic Associations and Communities was accused of having plans to overthrow Turkey’s elected government and several others in the world, and replace them with fundamentalist Islamic Rule, according to Los Angeles Times.
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