Kenyan MP Charged with Inciting Violence

A Kenyan lawmaker and senior Muslim leader who offered to finance a separatist group targeted by a police crackdown was charged Thursday with inciting violence, court documents showed.

The indictment of Sheikh Mohammed Dor comes three days after the arrest of the leader of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a group that wants the coastal region of Kenya to break away from the rest of the country.

Dor was arrested Wednesday in the capital Nairobi after publicly offering to fund the MRC, according to senior police official Nicholas Kamwende. The lawmaker was sent back to Mombasa, where he spent the night in police custody.

He denied the charges of incitement to violence and was released on bail after paying two million Kenyan shillings ($23,000, 18,000 euros). His trial will start on November 13.

The Muslim leader, who has also slammed the police crackdown underway on the MRC, has said that since the Mombasa-based group is no longer outlawed, proposing to finance it cannot be illegal.

Dor is one of 12 Kenyan members of parliament who are not elected but rather appointed by the president to represent "particular interests" -- in his case, Kenya's Muslim community.

On Wednesday several other Muslim leaders slammed the fact that their MP had been "treated like a criminal". - AFP