Just on Safari: Dutch terror suspect says he was merely on holiday in Kenya

We were just on vacation, says 21-year-old Driss, one of four young men from the Netherlands who were arrested in Kenya in July on suspicion of terrorism. But Driss didn't tell anyone he was going to Kenya - not his father, his mother, his girlfriend or his sister.

On July 26th at 00.59 a.m. a friend of Driss in the Netherlands received a text message on his phone: "Go to the police". The next morning, at 10.15, he got another message: "Go to Driss' brother-in-law and tell him that we've been arrested. Don't tell dad." Six minutes later, there was a third message. "Do it quickly, we are being taken to Nairobi." After that there were no more messages.

Three days later, prosecutors in the Netherlands announced that four Dutchmen were being held in Kenya. According to local authorities, a justice ministry press release said, the arrests took place "on the border of Kenya and Somalia". The four young men had been on their way to "a jihadist training camp", a reference to the Al Shabaab fighters, a radical group in Somalia with links to Al Qaeda.

Not the first time

Dutch police immediately launched an investigation into "possible involvement in terrorism" of the four, who turned out to be three Dutch nationals, one of whom is of Somali descent, and a Moroccan with a Dutch residence permit. All four were 21 years old.

Last Friday they were released. According to the justice ministry, the investigation yielded insufficient evidence to hold the four any longer. They are, however, still suspected of forming a terrorist organisation and preparing a terrorist crime.

One of the released suspects is Driss. He was already in the news in 2005 because he and two friends had gone off to Azerbaijan. During a routine inspection it was found that two of their three visas had expired. They had gone on holiday, one of them told NRC Handelsblad at the time. But his parents feared that their son wanted to join the jihad, and had reported him missing.

Last summer Driss told his family he was going to Spain with friends. Instead they went to Kenya.

Two months later, at the office of his lawyer Bart Nooitgedacht, Driss looked thin and depressed. The conversation took place in the presence of the lawyer and Driss' brother.

Why did you go to Kenya?

"We really wanted to go to Sudan. We had been invited by a friend who lives there. But we heard the country is not very good for tourism. That's when we thought about Kenya. They have beautiful nature there, animals parks."

Did you take any holiday snapshots?"

Yes, we took more than three-hundred pictures in the five days before we were stopped."

What kind of pictures? You snorkeling? That sort of thing?

"Yes, ordinary photos. The police have seen them. But they never returned our camera."

Your parents didn't know where you were. Why didn't you tell them anything?

"My father would have said no. My father and mother are sick. They worry when I go far away."

And why didn't you tell your sister? You two are close.

"I was afraid she would tell my parents."

And your girlfriend?

"Before I left, things were bad between us."

A ticket to Kenya is not cheap. Do you have a job?

"I'm on unemployment benefits and I had some money saved up. And it was an inexpensive ticket."

Driss recalled how he and his friends were arrested. They had arrived by boat on the island of Kiwayu, a few dozen kilometres from the Somali border. But Kiwayu was "a bit expensive," Driss said. A local told them about a beautiful area on the mainland, "where you could snorkel, have a lobster dinner," and they decided to join him. Because the road on the mainland was impassable for cars, they went with a tractor trailer - the four of them sat in the back.

Dirty cells

This was how the Kenyan military patrol found them - on their way to a nature reserve, not to the Somali border, Driss said. According to him, the soldiers asked annoying questions, but they were not arrested at the time. That happened later, he said, when the boys had gone back to the island. They were thrown into a cell and then moved, first to Mombasa, and then to Nairobi.

The cells were overcrowded and dirty, Driss recalled. He got sick. He had not eaten for two days. "I was very scared what would happen."

From Nairobi, Driss and his friends were allowed to call the Dutch embassy. The embassy informed the Rotterdam-based national public prosecutor's office dealing with terrorist threats. An investigation was launched the same day.

Driss and his friends didn't know that. They thought they were being released when the Kenyan authorities put the four of them on a plane on July 31. "We thought that was it," said Driss. "We were going home."

Huge police presence

But upon deboarding in Brussels, the four young men were met by a Belgian anti-terrorist unit and arrested. Driss was surprised by the huge police presence. "When I looked up I saw helicopters."

Several days later they were transferred to the Netherlands. Driss ended up in the penitentiary in Vught - the same prison where the convicted terrorist Samir A. is being held.

Samir A. and another man were arrested by Ukranian border police in 2003 on their way to Chechnya "to help their Muslim brothers in their fight against the Russian army". They were put on a train back to the Netherlands. Last year, Samir A. was sentenced to nine years for allegedly plotting to murder several Dutch politicians, including prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

They should close that prison, said Driss. "It's inhumane what is happening there. You are literally terrorised."

In his lawyer's office Driss categorically denied being a jihadist. "I believe, but I do not have extreme views."

Do you go to mosque?

"I go from time to time to a mosque near my parents."

Were you more religious at the time you were deported from Azerbaijan?

"No."

Your brother said you were more fanatical about religion then. He said: "Driss is interested in girls now."

"I may have gone to mosque a bit more often at the time."

After the boys were arrested the Dutch secret service AIVD sent a report about them to the justice ministry. It said that Driss and the others arrested in Kenya had been in contact with three boys who were known to the AIVD for "having expressed the intention to join in armed jihad". One of them was already with Driss in Azerbaijan in 2005. Driss: "I say hello to them when I see them in the street. That's all."

Driss and two of the others arrested in Kenya share a two-bedroom apartment in The Hague. According to several neighbours there was much coming and going there on Fridays, and at least some of the visitors were in traditional dress. Driss said he never saw anything like that.

A suspicious poem

The house was searched, as was another house in The Hague where the fourth suspect lives with his parents. Among Driss' belongings police found a poem he had written in 2005: "I have seem bloodbaths and I have walked over fire."

They are just two lines from a long poem, said Driss' lawyer Nooitgedagt. "But that wasn't incriminating so they didn't use it."

According to the lawyer the case against his client is a mix of allegations and associations. "They don't even have the beginning of a case against these boys. Nothing, absolutely nothing."

NRC