WANTED TERRORIST HAS SWAZI PASSPORT

Convicted fraudster Ehmed Chisty.

MBABANE — The world’s most wanted female terror suspect is allegedly a Swazi passport holder.

Samantha Lewthwaite, now nicknamed the ‘White Widow’, is, among other crimes, wanted for her alleged involvement in the terror attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya which left more than 67 people dead last week. The ‘White Widow’ and her two children allegedly have fake Swaziland travel documents.

According to South Africa’s weekly, the Sunday Tribune, a convicted fraudster has admitted to have helped Lewthwaite get a fake Swazi travel document.

The publication interviewed Ehmed Chisty who admitted from his jail cell in Westville Prison (Durban) on Saturday that he had organised Swaziland passports for Lewthwaite and her two children.
Chisty who is serving a seven-year jail term alleged that Lewthwaite paid E20 000 for each passport which also included fake South African documents.

Chisty, according to the publication, said he had met Lewthwaite in 2005 before he went to her house in Randburg where she allegedly stated that she needed a full set of documents for herself and her children.
Chisty (60) told the Sunday Tribune on the inner dealings of a multimillion Rand South African-based racket that helped thousands of Islamic militants get travel documents.

He told the publication that he had worked in cahoots with another wealthy Durban businessman to process over 3 000 fraudulent IDs and passports for mostly al-Qaeda linked networks such as al-Shaabaab and Soldiers of Islam.

Chisty, who is wheelchair-bound, after being allegedly assaulted by the police said: “She paid the normal price of R20 000 for each document. The way it worked was that R15 000 would go to each Home Affairs official involved, who would then split it with colleagues, and I pocketed R5 000.”
He allegedly added that it pained him to see innocent people being killed and thought that if he hadn’t helped her none of them would have been killed at the mall.

Lewthwaite was reported to have been residing in Kenya and South Africa for the past four years.    
However, since then new passports and Swazi travel documents have been introduced by government.

OLD PASSPORTS LACK PROPER SECURITY FEATURES - PS

MBABANNE – Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs Anthony Masilela has said the old passports lacked proper security features which increased chances that they could be forged.

“It is very possible that our old passports might have been forged because the main reason we changed them was that it was getting more difficult to travel because they lacked proper security features,” said Masilela, in an interview yesterday.
“If this woman really had Swazi passports then it is clear that there were many loopholes particularly if they could be forged by a person who was not even in the country,” said Masilela.

He said it would be almost impossible to trace whether Lewthwaite was in the system because a majority of those who had fake passports were not registered.
Masilela said although new passports had been introduced there were also chances that they too could be forged.
“No system is watertight, but we have done all we can to ensure that it becomes difficult for such people to get their hands on these passports,” said Masilela.

In South Africa, the Minister of Home Affairs, Naledi Pandor, was quoted as saying there had been an investigation into how Lewthwaite had obtained her South African ID and passport, but this had occurred about two years ago.
“The passport was cancelled at that time because it was identified as fraudulently acquired.

“The passport itself was genuine but they used the identity of a South African, Faye Webb, to acquire a South African passport,” Pandor was quoted by the Sunday Tribune.
Earlier this year the Ministry of Home Affairs in Swaziland discovered that an officer based at Matata in Big Bend had made 24 passports for people of Asian descent and has since gone AWOL.  

However, there had actually been allegations that staff from the department was actually selling such documents and helping foreigners to obtain Swazi citizenship. The then Minister, Prince Gcokoma even reported the developments to the Royal Swaziland Police.

SD High Commission in SA on high alert

MBABANE — The Swaziland High Commission in South Africa is also on high alert following reports that Samantha Lewthwaite was identified some three weeks ago apparently engaged in surveillance of embassies in Pretoria.

Consul S’gayoyo Magongo when interviewed yesterday, however, said he could not go into details of what was happening because this was a very sensitive security matter. “We have the First Secretary’s office which works on such matters,” said Magongo.

He said, however, the alleged passports could not have come from the High Commission because they did not issue passports.
“Because of our proximity to Swaziland which is relatively close we normally refer people who need passports to the country and we do not issue them,” said Magongo.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: