Police Round Up 5 in Zanzibar Acid Attack

British teens return home to London for treatment
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2013 2:51 PM CDT
Police Round Up 5 in Zanzibar Acid Attack
The two teenagers injured in the Zanzibar acid attack.   (YouTube)

Police in Zanzibar have rounded up five men for questioning after a pair of British girls were burned in an acid attack and flown back to London, the Telegraph reports. One of the five men is probably a shopkeeper who argued with Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup, both 18, before the attack, but authorities have divulged little else. Meanwhile, a senior Muslim imam in Zanzibar accuses the extremist group Uamsho of perpetrating the attack.

"Of course this attack on the tourists was Uamsho," he said of the Muslim organization, which wants Zanzibar to break away from the mainland. But a police commissioner said only that Uamsho is among "many avenues of investigation." Good news for the Katie and Kirstie: Not only are they back home in London, but a medical orderly who saw them in Tanzania says the attack could have been worse. "It has not penetrated deep tissue," he said. "It would have been painful but they'll likely make a full recovery." (More acid attack stories.)

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