From: Abdalah Hamis
By Mike Pflanz, Stone Town
6:24PM BST 10 Aug 2013
A radical Muslim preacher wanted for questioning over the acid attack on two British tourists in Zanzibar was shot on Saturday night as he fled police trying to arrest him.
Sheikh Issa Ponda is understood to have survived the raid and was on the run but injured, police sources told The Daily Telegraph.
He had visited Zanzibar in the weeks running up to the attack on Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup, both from north London, who were on Saturday still in hospital being treated for their injuries.
Ponda earlier this month met with the imprisoned leaders of a Muslim separatist group, Uamsho, who police believe may have inspired the attack on the two women.
Tanzania’s director of public prosecutions, Elieza Feleshi, on Friday ordered that the cleric be arrested after accusing him of inciting violence, for which he was convicted earlier this year and given a 12 month suspended sentence.
“He narrowly escaped from the police in Morogoro, he was shot by our officers, but we are pursuing him,” said Faustine Shilogile, a senior police commander in Morogoro, the town 110 miles west of Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, where Ponda was shot.
The women, both aged 18, were admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London on Friday where they were receiving treatment for burns inflicted in an unprovoked attack while they were on a volunteering holiday.
Family members of the pair are believed to be keeping a bedside vigil, after the teenagers were flown home yesterday and immediately sent to the capital’s regional burns centre.
A hospital spokesman confirmed the women continued to be treated by medics, and their conditions were described as “stable”.
Miss Gee has already taken to Twitter to say: “Thank you for all your support x”.
Their doctor, Andy Williams, a consultant burns and plastic surgeon, said: “We can confirm that Katie and Kirstie have been transferred to our care at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s burns unit where we’re still assessing their injuries.
“Both families would like to thank everyone that’s helped to bring the girls back.
“The families now wish to have time with the girls and that the media would respect their privacy at this difficult time.”
A photograph released by the girls’ families showed the injuries one of them suffered in the attack.
The girl is shown wearing an open striped shirt and a silver necklace.
What appear to be acid burns are clearly visible on her chin, neck and upper chest.
One of the girl’s injuries are much worse than the other’s, it was reported, because helpers used dirty water on her burns.
One of the victims was reportedly immersed in the sea in the aftermath of the attack at Stone Town, a beach resort, and the salt water helped her skin.
“That completely altered the result: the salt water and the acid,” Miss Trup’s father, Marc, said.
“The other girl panicked, ran around, made her way to a public toilet.”
When “they got to the medical centre there was no shower,” he added. “They were throwing dirty water at her.”