How fleeing Al-Qaeda terrorist blew own cover in Malindi

MOMBASA: The dreaded Al-Qaeda mastermind Harun Abdullah Fazul blew his cover when he left behind his shaving machine, as he fled from his hideout in Malindi to escape arrest by Kenyan authorities, a Mombasa court has been told.

Prosecutor Dominic Mate said investigators used the item to harvest the fugitive's DNA which proved a perfect match with that of his two children.

Mr Mate was testifying in a case where Mahfudh Ashur Hemed and his son Ibrahim Mahfudh Ashur are accused of harbouring Fazul (right), the man accused of planning the August 7, 1998 bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The two are facing charges of harbouring Fazul between December 2007 and August 2, 2008 in their Malindi house.

He told Chief Magistrate Maxwell Gicheru that police also recovered a toothbrush, laptop, two false passports and terrorist training material they believe belonged to Fazul.

The State claims Hemed and Ashur hid Fazul for nine months. They were arrested on August 2, 2008 and have been in trial since. Gicheru put the two to their defence, saying the State has established an arguable case against them.

Mate further told the court the DNA lifted from the shaver matched that of Fazul's children as well as samples extracted from the terrorist's body after he was killed in Mogadishu in 2011 by Somalia soldiers.

Before the arrest, Mate said, US intelligence had information that Fazul was living in Malindi and that he was using some cyber cafes in the town.

Crime busters started monitoring cyber cafes at Malindi Complex and ultimately located Ibrahim Mahfudh communicating on internet.

The police said after identifying Ibrahim as the messenger following two weeks' surveillance, they pounced on him as he was coming from a Nest Cyber café and recovered a flash disk belonging to Fazul.

Following his arrest, the police stormed Mahfudh's house and recovered several items including Fazul's laptop, two passports with substituted photographs of fazul and hair shavers.

EXPENSIVE CASE

The police said during the raid, Fazul, who was inside the house, escaped using the rear door and jumped over the fence.

During the trial, Mate said the State had called 37 witnesses and described the case as one of the most expensive cases the State has handled.

But in his defence, Ibrahim denies having been arrested by the police as he was coming from a cyber café, insisting he was arrested by a white man near Star Hospital in Malindi while he was running away from police.

Hemed and his son Ibrahim have also denied that on March 13, 2008 at Kilimanjaro Lodge in Eastleigh in Nairobi, they jointly stole a Kenyan passport number 545187 the property of Ali Mohamed Abubakar.

The accused who are out on bond said they were told they have a case to answer after the State called 37 witnesses including two FBI agents from the US. The two are being represented by lawyers Abdallah Mazrui and Jared Magolo.

Hemed told the court he has never been to Eastleigh in Nairobi and disputed claims he might have stolen the passport that was found with Harun Fazul's photographs.

"When the white man arrested me, he asked me several times if I was Harun Fazul, and I told him I wasn't, "said Ibrahim.

He told the court after his arrest, the police ordered him to cover his face with his T Shirt so that he could not tell where he was being taken. Hemed, however, denied having seen the items in his house and insisted the police framed him.

 ARREST WARRANT

"I was arrested at Malindi Police Station by the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit officers when I went to enquire why my son was arrested," said Ashur.

He said the police raided his house without a warrant of arrest. He claimed he was never given a chance to talk to his lawyer.

"After my arrest I saw my son on August 4, 2008 at the Kenya Railway Police station despite having been arrested on August 2, 2008. I also saw my wife and my nine-year-old daughter in court in Mombasa," said Ashur.

The trial was put off to April 9, when they will call two witnesses to prove they were not harbouring Fazul.