NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) _ The American author of a best-selling book attacking Barack Obama as unfit for the presidency was being deported from Kenya on Tuesday, a criminal investigations official said.


Jerome Corsi, who wrote The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, was picked up by police Tuesday for not having a work permit, said Carlos Maluta, a senior immigration official in charge of investigations.

He was briefly detained at immigration headquarters before being brought to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for deportation, said Joseph Mumira, head of criminal investigations at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

A message left on Corsi’s mobile phone was not immediately returned.

Corsi had been scheduled to launch his book Tuesday in Kenya, where the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate is wildly popular. Obama’s late father, whom he barely knew, was a Kenyan economist and the candidate is considered by many Kenyans as a native son. Minibuses are emblazoned with his picture and vendors sell T-shirts bearing his image.

Obama was born in Hawaii, where he spent most of his childhood raised by his mother, a white American from Kansas.

Corsi’s book claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous, radical candidate for president and includes innuendoes and false rumors _ that he was raised a Muslim and attended a radical black church. The book also says Obama is secretly seething with “black rage.”

Corsi has written many books and articles, including co-authoring the No. 1 New York Times best seller, Unfit for Command – Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery Publishing Inc., 2004) with swift boat veteran John O’Neill.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group funded by the biggest Republican campaign donor in Texas in 2004, ran an attack ad on then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. In the ad, former Swift Boat veterans claimed Kerry lied to get one of his two decorations for bravery and two of his three purple hearts. But the veterans who accused Kerry were contradicted by Kerry’s former crewmen, and by Navy records, according to FactCheck.Org, a non-partisan organization that verifies the accuracy of campaign ads.

Obama is a Christian who attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and his campaign picks apart the book’s claims on the Obama campaign’s rumor-fighting website, FightTheSmears.com.

According to a statement announcing Corsi’s visit, he arrived last week at the invitation of Christian missionaries concerned about the rise of Islam. Corsi was planning to file daily dispatches all week, the statement said.

Obama’s Kenyan uncle, Said Obama, said he was unaware of Corsi’s detention and had no comment. A government spokesman did not return calls for comment.

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Associated Press writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this report.

Pictured above is Jerome Corsi.