Man sentenced for radicalising children terms charge unclear

Madrassa Samuel Wabwile at the High Court in Mombasa on January 17, 2017. PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Through lawyer Mbugua Mureithi, the appellant told the court that the term does not connote crime.

  • The appellant is a former Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and IT student at Maseno University where he was admitted in 2011 but was later expelled.

A madrassa teacher sentenced to 20 years in prison for radicalising primary school children has termed the charge unclear.

Samuel Wabwile alias Salim Mohamed, who is challenging the conviction at the High Court, said the term "radicalisation" was not a legal one.

Through lawyer Mbugua Mureithi, the appellant told the court that the term did not connote crime.

The appellant is a former undergraduate student of political science and information technology at Maseno University where he was admitted in 2011 but was later expelled.

According to Mr Mureithi, the term "radicalisation" is not part of the law but only appears as a marginal note.

“Once charged with an offence which is not defined, he was not given a warning on what he faces,” Mr Mureithi said.

The lawyer further told the court that the charge was defective and unconstitutional.

He said the evidence before the magistrate who convicted the appellant was not time specific.

The defence lawyer on Wednesday told Justice Dora Chepkwony that there was no witness who talked about jihadism before the magistrate and the appellant was convicted on inadmissible evidence, largely of children.

None of the children, he said, were taken through a test on whether they understood what it meant to take an oath before they testified.

“The test is for the judicial officer to confirm the meaning of oath; whether they possess sufficient intelligence to tell the truth,” said Mr Mureithi who claimed the bulk of the civilian witnesses were members of the same family.

He argued that even if the judge was to uphold the conviction, the sentence should be reduced since 20 years was more like a life sentence.

Wabwile committed the offence between January 8, 2013 and June 19, 2015 at Gotani location in Kilifi County.

According to the prosecution, he promoted extreme “jihadism” for the purpose of facilitating ideologically-based violence to advance religious change by teaching fighting techniques in a mosque.

The appeal hearing will resume on January 27.