Warrants out for two over Coast riots

A court on Thursday issued warrants of arrest against two men who police claim incited youths to attack churches and kill policemen and moderate Muslim clerics.

This was in response to the killing of Islamic preacher Aboud Rogo early last week, which triggered three days of riots in Mombasa.

Four people, including three prison warders, were killed in the riots in which four churches were looted and set ablaze.

Mombasa senior principal magistrate Joyce Gandani issued the warrants against Mr Aboud Awadh and Mr Amani Almasi.

The two men failed to attend court to plead to the charges after they were separately charged with two counts of incitement to violence.

The case will now be mentioned on September 24.

This will bring to 27 the number of people so far charged over the riots.

The two men are accused of uttering the inflammatory words: “Imam wote wanaoungana na serikali wachinjwe na pia polisi yeyote akionekana auwawe” — (Loosely translated to mean all Muslim preachers who are taking sides with the government should be slaughtered, and any police officer seen should be killed).

According to the prosecution, these words were meant to bring death or physical injury to any class of persons, community or body of persons.

Destruction of property

The two also allegedly uttered the words: “Makanisa yote Mombasa yachomwe” — (All churches in Mombasa should be burned) — words intended to lead to the damage or destruction of property.

The offences are alleged to have been committed on August 27 at Masjid Musa in Majengo area, Mombasa.

This came barely a day after Mr Abubakar Shariff alias Makaburi, an ally of Sheikh Rogo, was slapped with more charges relating to the riots.

Mr Shariff, who denied the three charges, is in remand custody until September 17 when Mombasa senior resident magistrate Elvis Michieka will rule on whether he should be freed on bond. He had initially been charged with one count of incitement to violence.

In a related development, the team mandated to investigate the shooting of Sheikh Rogo on Thursday promised to explore all avenues to get to the bottom of the matter.

The chairman of the team, Mr Jacob Ondari, said that despite lacking witnesses, the investigators will use all means to collect evidence and ensure that justice is done to the aggrieved.

“We shall not leave any aspect, which might help us to get evidence linking the suspects of the killing even if we shall be forced to get a court order to exhume the body to conduct postmortem,” Mr Ondari, an Assistant Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, said.

Give testimony

Since the investigation began four days ago, he said, only seven people had come forward to testify.

Speaking during a media briefing at the directorate’s office in Mombasa, Mr Ondari said the team was reaching out to Sheikh Rogo’s family through close associates to persuade them to give any information they may have to the team.

He said the family members who witnessed the shooting and ultimate killing of Sheikh Rogo are key witnesses and the inquiry could not be closed until they came forward to testify.

Meanwhile, a Muslim rights body, which had been approached to convince the family to testify, turned down the request.

Muslims for Human Rights executive director Hussein Khalid said they would not to be involved because the police, who have been blamed for the killing, are members of the inquiry team.

“Muhuri feels it should not legitimise a process that obviously would not yield results. This is because we have no faith with the police, who are suspects in the case,” Mr Khalid said.

He also said police should release the findings of investigations into the killing of Muslim activist Samir Khan, whose body was found in the Tsavo East National Park five months ago.

But the investigators said they were unmoved by Muhuri’s decision and would approach the family through different leaders.