How al-Qaeda leader slipped through the net

[dArKeR]

Andrew England | Mombasa, Kenya

For one night, police had one of the FBI's most wanted al-Qaeda terrorists behind bars.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was picked up in connection with an armed robbery in the steamy Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. It should have been a coup for Kenya's cops. They had a man with a $25-million bounty on his head who was indicted for planning the 1998 United States embassy bombings in East Africa.

The problem was they didn't know his true identity, although Fazul's most-wanted poster had been collecting dust on the grimy walls of Kenyan police stations for years.

A day after his detention on July 12 2002, Fazul escaped, outwitting seven police officers armed with AK-47s and 9mm pistols. The head of al-Qaeda's East African terror cell evaded capture then, and at least one other time a year later, according to an Associated Press (AP) investigation.

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