Terror girls father’s day of agony

The father of two of the three women terrorists killed in their foiled attempt to burn Mombasa’s Central Police Station on Sunday was on Wednesday pleading with the authorities to release the bodies of his daughters for burial.

Mr Abdirahman Hussein had already dug two adjacent graves at Tudor Muslim Cemetery in the hope of burying Maimuna Abdirahman Hussein and Ramla Abdirahman Hussein, two of his 12 children.

And at his home in Ridhwaan in Majengo, friends and relatives had gathered to condole with the family as they prepared for the burials.

The Daily Nation established that the bodies, which Mr Hussein identified on Tuesday as those of his children, were about to be handed over to the family for burial at the mortuary, but were taken back, because the family had failed to obtain permission to collect them from the police.

The distraught father even swore an affidavit pleading to bury the girls without a post-mortem being conducted on them, because of his Muslim faith. He even gave an assurance that he would not hold any “person or authority’’ accountable for the deaths of his daughters, whom he says died “in an encounter with the police at Central Police Station”.

MAN INTERROGATED

On Wednesday, the man was interrogated for the second day by the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit over the foiled raid, which left two police officers and a civilian, injured. On Monday, anti-terror police raided his home and confiscated mobile phones from the whole family.

According to close family friends and neighbours of Mr Hussein, a Mombasa businessman, the two young women were brought up under strict conditions and were not allowed to socialise or even step out of the house without the consent of their parents or older siblings.

“The family even installed WiFi at their home so that the girls would not go out with the excuse of looking for internet services.’’

A relative said that the father reported the disappearance of the girls as soon he realised they had gone missing that morning. Later, the family learnt that they had been killed at the police station. The mother fainted on receiving the news.

At the mortuary, our reporters saw the mother in the company of a child and some women, waiting for possible news of the release of the bodies.

On Wednesday, the anti-terrorism police went to Qubaa Muslim School, where the leader of the attack, Tasnim Yakubu Abdullahi Farah and Ramla went to school, and collected their files. They also showed the teachers photos of the two and asked them whether they could identify them.

“When we were shown the photos, we positively identified the two,’’ said a teacher.

We established on Wednesday that Maimuna had been admitted to the Technical University of Mombasa for a diploma in pharmaceutical technology. She was scheduled to report on Monday.

We also confirmed that Maimuna attended Alfarsy Girls Secondary School in Tononoka and scored grade B in 2013.