Terror suspects go missing

By Wahome Thuku

NAIROBI, KENYA: Two men accused of being behind a series of terror attacks in Nairobi and Garissa have gone missing after being released by a Nairobi court.

Ali Musa Kipkoech and Abdalla Aziz Michiri disappeared on May 6, only minutes after being set free by a magistrate court on the request of the police.

Their relatives are however accusing the police of having hijacked them in court and taken them to unknown destination. They fear that the two men, who had earlier been accused of throwing grenades at police officers, had been executed. 

Kipkoech and Michiri were arrested by officers of the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) on Aprilb 20, this year at Kariobangi South in Nairobi at around 5pm and arraigned before a magistrate court on April 22.

They were however not charged with any offence. Police applied for permission to hold them for  two weeks to conduct investigations.

In an affidavit sworn by Corporal James Kangogo of the ATPU police claimed that during the arrest, the suspects hurled a grenade at them with intent to harm the officers.

“Kangogo told Senior Principal Magistrate E.G. Nderitu that a grenade lever and safety pin were recovered at the scene of the attack. They also recovered  20 rounds of ammunition,” he claimed.

Police claimed the men were trained in military warfare by the Al-Shaba in Somalia. “They are  involved in recruiting members of the Al-shabaab within the country,”  the police claim.

Kangogo said the suspects were involved in several grenade attacks in Nairobi and Garissa and were accomplices of other suspects being pursued by the police.

He requested that they be held at Kilimani and Kileleshwa police stations for 14 days to enable the police conclude the investigations and to lead them to other suspects.

The magistrate accepted the application and ordered that they be held at Container Depot Police Post for 14 days to help in the investigations.

On May 6, the suspects were taken back to court but police said they had no charges against them and they could be released.

Another ATPU officer Newton Mwati told the magistrate, “We have finished with them. No charges have been preferred against them. They are now okay to be freed,”

The magistrate then asked each of the suspects if they had anything to say and they answered “Its okay.”
She then recorded, “The suspects are now set to liberty,”

Relatives who were in court claim that soon after the release police officers rearrested them inside the courtroom and led them to their car and have not been seen ever since. 

“We have been to the ATPU office several times and they tell us that they don’t have the men in their custody since they were released by the court,” a close relative said.

Their lawyer Mbugua Mureithi says the court should have questioned the motive for seeking to release such suspects.

“The magistrate should have probed further why police had decided to prefer that they be released despite having made serious allegations against them,” Mureithi says “A man who is accused of hurling explosives at police officers cannot just be set free with no charges against him and fail to raise eyebrows,” he said.

He says even if police wanted to conduct investigations into their terrorism activities they could have charged them with the clear offences committed during the arrest, of attacking the officers and keeping explosives.

“The court did not even inquire what happened to the ammunition and other exhibits said to have been recovered at the scene. The reasons for pulling the case out of court can only have been to avoid the legal process in dealing with the suspects,”

The families have prepared suit papers to seek orders for the police to produce the two men dead or alive.