Court detains 43 terror suspects for two days

A Nairobi court on Wednesday allowed the police to detain for two days 43 people, among them 38 college students, who were arrested in Eastleigh, Nairobi, over suspected terrorism related activities.

Two directors of Alison and Atlas colleges are among the suspects who will be held at the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) for interrogation to establish if they have links with Al-Shabaab terrorists.

Asha Ali Sarat and Ali Yusuf Ali were arrested alongside the managers of their college.

EDUCATION ACT

They will be charged with running an unregistered training and vocational education training (TVET) contrary to the Education Act.

The managers of Alison and Atlas College arrested during the police raid are Nasra Noor Ibrahim, Omar Muhumed Yahya, Mohamed Issa Mohamed and Edward Odinga Mulumba.

Ruling on a police request to detain the 43 among them a 14-year-old boy, Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Zainab Abdul said: “Five days are many as they don’t need the presence of the suspects to establish the leads they want.”

Ms Abdul said the police want to establish whether the suspects have been communicating with Al Shabaab. Also they need to verify with the national registration bureau the identity cards recovered from the suspects.

BOND APPLICATION

The Immigration Department to establish the validity of the suspects’ expired passports and visas. She reduced the five days sought by the Investigating officer Inspector Richard Ngatia by three.

Inspector Ngatia had indicated the suspects would be interrogated by a multi-agency team from various government departments.

He urged the magistrate to release the suspects on bond claiming that one of the suspects was epileptic. Ms Abdul directed police to take the epileptic suspect to hospital.  

Ms Abdul said the police needed ample time to peruse through the suspects’ travel and identification documents to establish genuine Kenyan citizens and foreigners. 

She said the police required time to analyse communication data from the electronic gadgets recovered from the 43 suspects to ascertain whether they had been in communication with Al Shabaab terrorists. Mr Ngatia had alleged some of the suspects were members of Amniat, a unit of Al Shabaab terrorists operating in Kenya.

She also directed the 14 year-old boy to be remanded separately.