Mysterious man at the heart of Merti case

Yusuf Ali Adan remains at large despite being central to foiled attack trial. [Standard,File]

Yusuf Ali Adan's name was mentioned several times during the trial of a suspect in a foiled attack aimed at the KICC and Milimani Law Courts.

Those charged are Abdimajit Hassan, Mohamed Osman, Antony Kitila, John Maina, Lydia Nyawira, and Francis Macharia.

They were charged with various counts related to terrorism.

Curiously, despite Adan being named several times and being at the center of various transactions and moments in the build-up to the plan, he remains at large.

It emerged that Adan introduced Hassan to Osman, who became his employee.

In his testimony, Osman said that he took care of Adan's livestock in Kiamaiko, and he would regularly move to the North Eastern region to source the animals.

Hassan told the court that he got into the business of buying and selling livestock within Kiamaiko.

He later met Adan, who introduced him to Somalia and international markets.

According to Hassan, the nature of their business saw them transact in cash, mostly in dollars.

In the event they got animals on credit, payments would be done via money transfer bureaus, alias Hawala's.

Hassan later sold Adan a Toyota Mark X registration number, KCL 621K.

He claimed that Adan instructed him to send Sh3,000 as a Christmas gift and a further Sh40,000 to John Maina.

According to him, Maina was Adan's brother's neighbour in Eastleigh.

In the meantime, the brother of a terrorist who was killed by the police during Osman and Hassan's arrest in Merti had pleaded with him to surrender.

According to the court documents, Abdi Huka, a police corporal, said that his younger brother, Mbarak Huka, had scored a B-minus in KCSE and was to join Mombasa Technical University.

However, Mbarak never went to Mombasa, instead, he called him through a Somalia number.

After a lengthy conversation, he refused to come back to Kenya, and Abdi advised his parents to report him missing.

Abdi later learned from the news that Mbarak had been killed in a shootout with police officers.

After two months, he accompanied his father to identify his body at the Meru Level 5 hospital.