SEVERAL airlines have refused to allow controversial Muslim Cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal aboard their aricraft, hampering efforts by Kenyan officials to deport the radical cleric back to Jamaica, the Daily Nation reported yesterday.

The Kenyan newspaper reported that al-Faisal was held at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi for most of yesterday, as government officials worked out an alternative plan to transport him to Jamaica.

Al-Faisal was arrested by Kenyan authorities on New Year’s Eve for entering that country illegally. They said the radical cleric gained access from Tanzania, after travelling through the Lunga Lunga border crossing at the Coast.

Al-Faisal was also accused of breaching the conditions of his tourist visa by preaching in mosques.

Yesterday, the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims chairman, Prof Abdulghafur El-bussaidy, was quoted in the Daily Nation as saying he knew little about al-Faisal.

But Sheikh Dor, the secretary general of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya, defended the Jamaican.

“He is an honest man who came into the country legally… he has not done anything wrong,” Sheikh Dor was quoted as saying.

“I have CDs of his preaching … from what I have seen and heard, you will love him. He only talks about the rights of Muslims but has not in any way called for the killing of anyone. Those are rumours being propagated by the western world,” he added.

Al-Faisal was deported to Jamaica in 2007 after serving four years in a British prison for inciting murder and stirring hatred by calling for the slaughtering of Americans, Hindus and Jews.

Yesterday, the Daily Nation reported that the Muslim Human Rights Forum group planned to block al-Faisal’s transfer to Mogadishu, Somalia.