Convicted terrorists who escaped from Kamiti captured

Musharaf Abdalla, Mohamed Abdi Abikar and Joseph Juma Odhiambo who escaped from Kamiti Prison on Monday, November 15. [Courtesy]

Three convicted terrorists who escaped from Kamiti on Monday have been arrested at Endau Location in Kitui East, police say.

A senior officer in Mutito, who spoke to The Standard in confidence, said the escapees were captured at 11am on the border of Tana River and Kitui counties.

“They are being transported back to Nairobi,” he said.

Endau in Kitui County, where the three convicted terrorists, who escaped from Kamiti Maximum GK Prison on Monday, were arrested today. [Image, Google Earth]

The three convicts are Musharaf Abdalla, who was convicted of attempting to attack Parliament in 2012; Joseph Juma Odhiambo, who was arrested in 2019 at the border between Kenya and Somalia for planning to join the terror group al-Shabab; and Mohamed Abdi Abikar, who was convicted for his role in al-Shabab’s attack on Garissa University in April 2015. That attack killed at least 148 people, most of them students.

Endau, in Kitui East, is about 250 kilometres from Nairobi

From Kamiti Maximum Security Prison via Thika to Matuu and on to Kitui, it would have taken the convicts five hours to reach Endau by car

If they were walking non-stop, and covering four kilometres an hour, they would have got to Endau within three days

The town is 88 kilometres from Kitui Town. 

Yesterday, President Uhuru Kenyatta revoked the appointment of Wycliffe Ogallo as the Commissioner-General of the Kenya Prisons Service, following news of the escape.

Ogallo has been replaced by retired Brigadier John Warioba who was sworn in immediately.

Ogallo's sacking happened after the president was briefed by a team from the Interior ministry on the security breaches at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison that led to the escape of three convicts.

A statement from State House noted that compelling public interest and the need to entrench accountability in the ranks of the leadership of all security organs occasioned the decision.

Uhuru directed Interior CS Fred Matiang'i to take all necessary action to pursue the Kamiti escapees.

The State Department of Correctional Services was also directed to sanction disciplinary action against all KPS personnel who were on duty when the security breaches occurred.