Police detain man who sold vehicle used in Kenya bombing

P Police say no one detained so far in connection with the case has been named as a suspect.

By Matthew Rosenberg ~ The Associated Press

MOMBASA, Kenya -- Police investigating last week's coordinated attacks on Israelis in Kenya questioned three more men Wednesday, including one who said he recently sold the four-wheel-drive vehicle used in a deadly hotel bombing.

In Washington, President Bush blamed al-Qaida for the attacks.

"I believe that al-Qaida was involved in the African bombings in Kenya. I believe al-Qaida hates freedom. I believe al-Qaida will strike anywhere they can in order to disrupt a civil society and that's why we're on the hunt," Bush said Wednesday.

Kenyan police detained two men Wednesday who witnesses said were near the Mombasa airport on Nov. 28 when a pair of surface-to-air missiles narrowly missed an Israeli charter flight -- minutes before the attack on the hotel.

The seller of the car, a Kenyan of Somali origin, was detained in Mombasa late Tuesday. He told police he sold the green Mitsubishi Pajero to "two Arab-looking young men," who traded in a Toyota Corolla sedan and paid about $1,025, Deputy Police Commissioner William Langat told The Associated Press.

None of the men were identified. Langat insisted that none of those detained in the case so far, including 10 men picked up from a Somali fishing boat on the day of the blast, had been named as suspects. Authorities hope they might provide information that would lead to the actual culprits, he said.

On Monday, Langat told a news conference that the vehicle used in the bombing had been purchased in 1991 by a foreigner working for a Christian charity. It apparently remained registered in that name, although the foreigner left Kenya in 1998.

The vehicle exploded outside the Paradise Hotel near Mombasa. Ten Kenyans, three Israelis and at least two bombers died.

Langat said there was no information on a second four-wheel drive vehicle that was seen driving away from the spot near the airport where the missiles were fired -- 12 miles south of the hotel.

The 10 men who were detained last week remain in custody, Langat said. Believed to be Pakistanis and Somalis, Langat said their status was somewhere between "suspects and not connected."

Ali Omar Haji Mohammed, the Somali owner of the fishing boat that arrived in Mombasa's port Nov. 23, said that among those detained were five Pakistanis he had hired in Karachi, where he bought the boat, and three Somalis.

He said that because the Pakistanis had no valid documents, he obtained papers for them in Somalia so they could make the trip to Mombasa to have the 50-foot vessel repaired.