29-year-old terrorism accused ‘a flight risk’

A judge has been asked to reject a bail application by a man said to have found with video clips of a police training school since he is highly likely to sneak back to Somalia if freed.

Opposing the application by Mr Mahamud Abdi Adan, 29, the prosecution said he had an intact network in Somalia, having left Kenya in 2002 and settled in the war-torn country where he is believed to have been trained by Al-Shabaab.

“The respondent was found planning to execute attacks against vital government installations when he was arrested on March 25 following leaked intelligence,” Mr Nicholas Waringa of the Anti Terrorism Police Unit swore in an affidavit to the court.

He said the possibility of a 30-year jail term facing Mr Adan if convicted increased the likelihood that he might jump bail.

“There is new evidence and the possibility of additional charges being pressed against the suspect,” the officer said on Wednesday.

Mr Adan is charged with collecting information for the purpose of instigating terrorism. He was allegedly found with a compact disk containing restricted video clips of the Administration Police Training College in Embakasi, Nairobi.

Mr Adan, who returned to Kenya in 2009 after graduating from Dharal Olum University in Mogadishu with a major in Sharia law, was arrested at Olesauli Building in Nairobi’s Fedha Estate.

During his first appearance in court, Senior Principal Magistrate Joseph Karanja denied him bail, saying it was in the public interest that he be kept in custody pending the outcome of the trial.

TRIBAL ANIMOSITY

Mr Adan’s lawyer, Mr Chacha Mwita, on Wednesday renewed his client’s plea to be released on bond.

But the prosecution urged the magistrate to take judicial notice of the numerous terrorist attacks in the country lately, including the raid in Mpeketoni where lives were lost, scores injured and property destroyed.

Mr Mwita faulted the argument by the prosecution on the grounds that the Mpeketoni attacks have been linked to opposition politics and tribal animosity, which his client had nothing to do with.

He said Mr Adan had neither been charged with being a member of a terrorist network nor linked to the attacks. The court will make a ruling in two weeks.