Key suspect charged after surrendering as elders seek protection

Police have linked two terrorism suspects, who surrendered this week, to those who shot and seriously wounded a senior detective in Mombasa.

The officers claimed that the two were also part of a gang that attempted to kill the county’s Criminal Investigations boss Victor Ndumba.

The two, Mr Kayuni Khatib Khamisi and Mr Abdulkarim Mzee Saraj aka Abdul, surrendered on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

On Thursday, Mr Khamisi was charged with the shooting.

He appeared before Mombasa senior principal magistrate Justus Kituku and denied the charge.

Principal prosecution counsel Alex Jami opposed Mr Khamisi’s release on bond, saying that he was facing a charge of murder at the High Court.

However, defence lawyer Jared Magolo said there were no compelling circumstances to deny his client bond.

Mr Magolo said the report of the victim was no longer a compelling reason and that the court should note that the accused was out of bond in another High Court matter.

On August 26, four gangsters attacked Mr Ndumba, a Senior Superintendent of Police, and shot him in the abdomen. He was discharged from hospital last month.

According to the police, both Mr Khamisi and Mr Saraj are also part of a group being sought for the shooting of two tourists — a German and a Russian — in the Old Town.

On Saturday, the Director of Criminal Investigations, Mr Ndegwa Muhoro, had said that the seven suspects the police were looking for were armed and dangerous.

The seven are Mr Ismael Shosi Mohammed, aka Ismael Mmanga, Mr Abdulkarim Mzee aka Abdul, Mr Farah Abdi Farah, Mr Kayuni Khatib Khamisi, Mr Mahir Khalid Riziki, Mr Fauz Omar Mohamed and Mr Swaleh Ramadhan.

Mr Khamisi and Mr Hassan Nasrullah Musa alias Guti were in October 2013 charged with the murder of Mr Gadaffi Mohamed in January of the same year.

He was also among the youths charged over the riots sparked by the killing of Muslim preacher Sheikh Ibrahim Ismail alias Rogo.

Guti was shot dead by men suspected to be police officers on November 9, on Mwembe Tayari Road near Arya Primary School.

His death sparked violent attacks in which a college lecturer was stabbed to death.

PICTURES WERE PUBLISHED

Mr Khamisi surrendered to Mombasa County Police Commander Robert Kitur on Tuesday after Mr Farah Abdi Farah turned himself in a day after their pictures were published in the Sunday Nation.

According to the police, Abdul is said to be in possession of a firearm. He is said to be the one who shot the DCIO several times in the stomach.

Meanwhile, members of community policing, village elders, religious and community leaders have asked the government to assure them of their security in the face of rising insecurity in Mombasa county.

The leaders, who spoke to the Nation on Thursday, said they were living in fear following threats from criminals who target them because they work with security agencies.

They said their lives were threatened by drug dealers and their associates, radical youths and armed gangs particularly in Kisauni and Mvita.

In Kisauni, a police operation has been ongoing following attacks on Monday by gangs which left three people dead and at least seven injured.

Community leaders named at least four criminal gangs who are terrorising wananchi as Wakali Kwanza, Angry Tigers, Kakende Family and two new gangs that have sprung up.

They said the gangs drew members from school children as young as 13 years who “during the day are in school uniforms and at night are armed with pangas”.

On October 25, 2014, a village elder was killed and another one injured together with four other people by unidentified gangsters outside a shop in Mombasa’s Mwembe Tayari area.

Reported by Wachira Mwangi, Philip Muyanga and Galgalo Bocha