The Iranian government on Friday ordered the Kenyan government to release two of its nationals who were arrested on Tuesday while taking photographs outside the Israeli Embassy in Nairobi.
The two, Sayed Nasrollah Ebrahimi and Abdolhosein Gholi Safaee, were arrested by Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) on grounds that they were planning to commit a terror attack on the Israeli Embassy.
Through it's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Iran stated that the two were lawyers who had been sent to Kenya by their government and not terrorists as earlier suspected.
“The two men are official lawyers of the justice ministry... who travelled to Nairobi on behalf of the families of two Iranian prisoners in Kenya for a legal follow-up", the Ministry's spokesman Bahram Ghasemi stated.
Ghasemi stated that the arrest of the two had been a "misunderstanding" after "the intervention of some third parties into the case,” who wanted to destroy Kenya-Iran relations but did not reveal more details on the matter.
Prior to the arrest, Nasrollah and Gholi had visited Kamiti Prison to see two other Iranians, Ahmad Mohammed and Sayed Mousavi, who are serving a 15-year term for possessing explosives. They were convicted in 2013 and are allegedly being represented by the two supposed lawyers.
The two Iranians arrested at the Israeli Embassy were apprehended alongside a Kenyan, Moses Keyah, and appeared in court on Thursday where they denied the allegations of planning to attack the Embassy.
