26 June 2010, 12:00 p.m.

Interpol terror suspect  arrested at Zimbabwe/South African border 

Zimbabwe's police arrested two Pakistani citizens, one a fugitive wanted by Interpol for terror related charges, on suspicion of terrorism when they attempted to cross the border into South Africa, news reports said on Saturday. 

Imran Muhammad, 33, is, according to Interpol’s website, wanted in Rwalpindi, Pakistan for crimes against life and health and terrorism. Newspapers have linked him, if indeed this is the man arrested in Zimbabwe, to the Mumbai attacks in 2008 that has left 166 people dead. The men had tried to enter South Africa via the Beitbridge border crossing with Zimbabwe. The border has a notorious reputation for being under-policed and easy to cross. The arrests come as several high-profiled American visitors gathered in Rustenburg to watch Team USA play against Ghana. 

Zimbabwe's government-run The Herald newspaper said police believes the suspects, identified as Imran Muhammad, 33, and Chaudry Parvez Ahmed, 39, tried to enter the country with fake passports. So far they have established that the men travelled from Saudi Arabia to Tanzania from where they entered Zimbabwe with fake Kenyan passports. 

The arrests follows as the Daily Dispatch, one of the South Africa’s foremost investigative journals, report that a world cup security alert had led to the arrest of 16 people in Port Elizabeth this week. Eleven people were arrested, according to the newspaper, inside the city’s Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium during the match between Switzerland and Chile that was played on Monday. The paper further stated that another five people were arrested after the match at a nearby park-and-walk as they tried to leave.  

Police spokesperson Sally de Beer has denied that the arrests had anything to do with terrorism and merely said they were questioned as they were acting “in a suspicious manner”, but according to the Dispatch intelligence officials gave a briefing to “football and safety bosses on fears of a potential terror incident at the city’s 2010 stadium.” 

The Dispatch said that one of their sources “described the incident as a ‘perceived threat against Fifa’”.