The two leaders shake hands during a joint press briefing at State House Nairobi/PSCU
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 8 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied any knowledge of an assassination attempt on his life during his visit to Kenya.
Speaking while in Addis Ababa, Netanyahu stated that he learnt about the incident for the first time during a press conference with his Ethiopian counterpart Hailemariam Desalegn.
According to the Daily Mail newspaper, the Israeli PM rubbished the reports saying that there was nothing to it. “The answer is we know nothing about it because there is nothing in it.”
His sentiments followed a report by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida that Kenya’s intelligence service foiled an planned attack on his convoy on his arrival.
The Israeli leader has been on a four-day trip to Africa which started on Monday when he visited the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, where his brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed 40 years ago during the famous raid which saved the lives of more than 100 Israeli passengers.
On Tuesday he visited Kenya and Al-Jarida reported that his life was saved when the Kenyan security forces re-routed his convoy after receiving intelligence about an assassination plot.
An anonymous source allegedly told the newspaper that just before Netanyahu left the airport in Nairobi on his way to his hotel, the Kenyan authorities told his security detail his convoy must change its route.
There was apparently an argument between the Israeli and Kenyan security forces, but they agreed to change the route.
After the convoy changed its course and arrived safely at his hotel, it was discovered that Kenyan intelligence had exposed a plan to attack the convoy on its original course.
Netanyahu is the first ruling Israeli prime minister to visit Kenya and the first to visit Sub-Saharan Africa in nearly three decades.
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