Family charged over bomb blast suspect

What you need to know:

  • A man, his wife and son are charged with assisting terrorism mastermind Fazul Abdullah escape arrest.
  • Fazul is also wanted over the 1998 bomb attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam
  • The three accused to remain in custody until Friday when the issue of bond will be addressed.
  • Police at the Coast have sealed all escape routes as they intensify hunt for Fazul.

A man, his wife and their son were on Monday charged with assisting terrorism mastermind Fazul Abdullah escape arrest.

However, Mahfudh Ashur Hemed, his wife Luftiya Abubakar Bashrahil and their son Ibrahim Mahfudh Ashur denied the charges.

They had been accused of harbouring Fazul, who is wanted over the November 28, 2002 bomb attack at an Israeli-owned tourist hotel in Kilifi.
Ashur faced separate charges of helping Fazul escape punishment in February 2008.

Tight security

Mr Hemed and his son were arrested on Saturday and were taken to court handcuffed and under tight security while the woman who was arrested on Sunday was brought to court separately.

They were arrested by officers from the Anti-Terrorism police unit in Malindi who accused them of being close associates of Fazul, an al Qaeda mastermind.

Fazul Abdullah, who is now believed to be on the run after evading arrest at the weekend. He is wanted over the bombing of Paradise Hotel in Kikambala in 2001. Photo/FILE

Fazul is also wanted over the 1998 bomb attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Some 206 Kenyans died in the Nairobi attack.

Hemed and his son were found inside a house in Malindi Old Town at 7.30pm on Saturday, just three hours after the officers received information that senior members of al Qaeda had met to prepare an attack. The squad of 25 officers from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, backed by the GSU’s Recce Company, raided yet another house in Malindi, where Fazul was believed to have been hiding.

Police later said they narrowly missed to arrest Fazul but they found his two passports and a laptop computer.

Initial reports indicated that the passports were foreign but copies seen by the Nation showed that they were Kenyan. One of the passports had expired while the other was issued on February 28, 2008.

The charge against Fazul’s alleged accomplices stated that, “well-knowing that one Mohammed Ali, alias Abdallah Mohammed Fazul, alias Abdalla Abdul Karim, alias Harun Fazul, alias Adan Hussein Ali Mirza did on the November 20, 2002 at Kikambala, murder 15 people, received him in Malindi in December 2007, maintained him and helped him to escape punishment.”

After they denied the charges, the magistrate ordered that they remain in police custody for four days following an application by the prosecution who requested more time on behalf of the Anti-Terrorism Police to gather vital information and assist in investigations.

The application was based on an affidavit sworn by Mr Daniel Obong’o, a police superintendent attached to the CID headquarters in Mombasa.

The investigators had requested that the three be remanded for five days since the officers had not had sufficient time to conduct investigations.

The three were taken to court to comply with the law, which states that a suspect should not remain in custody for more than 48 hours.

However, Mr Yusuf Abubakar, representing the accused, opposed the application for custody, saying there was no compelling reason to warrant their continued stay in police cells.

He said that since his clients had denied the charges, the police officers had a chance to investigate and if they did not get any information at the time of arrest, they would still not succeed by remanding them.

“According to the procedural law, once the accused person enters a plea and sufficient investigations are carried out by police, it will be infringing on the rights of the accused persons to have them remain in custody,” he said.

According to him, the three were willing to talk to the investigating officer and answer any questions asked.

“It appears as if this is a fishing expedition because the prosecution is not willing to prosecute the accused,” he told the court.

In reply, the prosecutor said that police had abided by the Constitution by bringing the accused to court within the stipulated time. According to him, the police had not infringed on the rights of the accused.

In her ruling, the magistrate directed that the three remain in custody until Friday when the issue of bond will be addressed. She also ordered that their lawyer be provided with witness statements.

After the court case, Mr Mahfudh was taken to his house by a team of Anti-Terrorism officers led by Mr Nicholas Kamwende and Malindi police boss Geoffrey Waikwa.

The officers dusted the house for fingerprints and searched the home. Police at the Coast have sealed all escape routes as they intensified the hunt for Fazul.