Computer hitch mars trial of Westgate Mall terror suspects

Soldiers outside the Westgate Mall in Nairobi on September 26, 2013. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • The prosecution had sought to stream “live downloads” of graphic pictures allegedly found in a laptop belonging to one of the suspects, who was arrested shortly after the raid.
  • Joseph Olum, a cybercrime expert at the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and who may resume his testimony on Friday before a Nairobi court, said he received the laptop in question on October 1, 2013 for analysis.
  • He said he was required to analyse the contents in the 250-gigabyte laptop and find out if it was related to the Westgate terror case.
  • He said he retrieved eight files from the laptop’s web history.

A computer hitch on Thursday marred the trial of four suspects being held over the Westgate shopping mall terror attack on September 21, 2013.

The trial hit a snag after a computer system the prosecution wanted to use failed to deliver due to a network error.

The problem forced an adjournment, after the trial court had sat and a witness sworn to give his evidence.

The prosecution had sought to stream “live downloads” of graphic pictures allegedly found in a laptop belonging to one of the suspects, who was arrested shortly after the raid.

Mr Joseph Olum, a cybercrime expert at the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and who may resume his testimony on Friday before a Nairobi court, said he received the laptop in question on October 1, 2013 for analysis.

“It was an exhibit connected to the case at hand, the officer said before he described the details of a “forensic exploitation of the gadget” which followed at the cybercrime laboratory.

He said he was required to analyse the contents in the 250-gigabyte laptop and find out if it was related to the Westgate terror case.

“I removed the hard-drive from the laptop and connected for analysis using an encrypting agent which protects "contamination" and helps in cracking the password, allowing access to its registry,” the witness told the court before he was stood down.

WEB HISTORY

He said he retrieved eight files from the laptop’s web history.

“There were also some folders titled CD, Desktop, Documents, Downloads and Recycle Bin,” the witness said.

Mr Olum said from the retrieved the web history and folders he pulled out from a site, one of the suspects had previously visited a page titled “Al Kataib Foundation for Media Production, series training in Swahili” depicting a Shabaab agent training on the use of an AK-47 rifle.

“The site was on YouTube showing an Al-Shabaab member demonstrating to others the stripping and assembling of the firearm,” the police officer said.

The prosecutor, Mungai Warui, then asked the witness to play the video before the parked courtroom but it could only show a title, “The daily life of a fighter.”

Several attempts to jump-start the machine and stream the video live before court were all in vain.

The witness said the suspect visited the site on September 18, 2013 at around 4.06pm, according to his finding.

The case adjourned for a fresh hearing on Friday.

In the case, Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar, Adan Mohamed Dheq and Hussein Hassan Mustafah have been charged with assisting the terrorists who attacked the mall in carrying out the raid.

They have all been denied bail “for security reasons”.

Adan Dheq is further charged with being found with a laptop containing Al-Shabaab material, which the prosecution says was intended to be used in instigating terrorism acts.

He also faces a charge of forging a Kenyan identity card.