Mombasa night club blast: Suspect held

2012-06-25 10:20

A man who was injured by an explosion at a bar in the Mishomoroni district of Mombasa, which police at the scene said was a grenade attack, is treated at the Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya. (AP)

Mombasa - One of the people injured in a grenade attack that left one person dead and dozens injured in the coastal city of Mombasa is being held as a suspect, police said on Monday.

Thirty people were still in hospital on Monday morning, three of them in a serious condition, provincial police chief Aggrey Adoli told journalists.

"One of those wounded people is assisting us because he is providing contradictory statements. He is being held as a suspect," Adoli went on.

The blast tore through the Jericho bar, in the densely populated Mishomoroni district of the city, at about 22:00 on Sunday when football fans were following the Euro 2012 quarter-final match in Kiev between England and Italy.

The attack came just two days after the United States had warned its citizens of an imminent threat of such an attack in the coastal city and Kenyan police had arrested two Iranians on suspicion of planning bomb attacks.

Just hours before Sunday's attack, a senior Kenyan official had denounced the US warning.

"It is a reckless advisory and it was totally uncalled for," the head of the Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet, Francis Kimemia, had told journalists in Mombasa.

"It is aimed at sabotaging the country's economy." Kenya officials had written to the US embassy to get them to "reverse their decision", he added.

- SAPA