NAIROBI, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) — Four Somali terror suspects denied on Tuesday 12 counts of charges related to Kenya’s airport blast levied against them by a Kenyan court.
The suspects – Hassan Abdi Mohamud, Mohammed Osman Ali alias Modika, Ilyas Yusuf Warsame and Garad Hassan Fer Ali – were charged with several counts of supporting terrorism, possessing explosive documents illegally and obtaining false identification documents.
From L) Omar Liban Abdulle, Mohamed Abdi Ahmed, Hussein Hassan Mustafa and Adan Mohamed Ibrahim, all charged in connection with last year’s Westgate mall massacre, appear in court in Nairobi, on January 27, 2014. (AFP)
While denying the charges before Acting Chief Magistrate Doreen Mulekyo, the four said that they were being used as scapegoats and they had no connections with the attack at JKIA, Kenya’s main airport in mid January.
One of the four, Warsame, said he is an employee of the Somali embassy in Kenya and cannot engage in terror activities. The other three said they are Kenyan citizens who have businesses in the country.
The suspects said the police chief David Kimaiyo had already attributed the blast to a loose light bulb that fell into a bin at the Java Coffee House at the airport.
Mulekyo ordered that the four be remanded until Feb. 12 when a hearing to determine their application for bond is set.
The prosecution said the intelligence police officers have information that the attack at JKIA was executed by the suspects together with others not arrested.
“The state is opposed to the application for release on bond, the accused are not Kenyans and have no fixed abode,” said State counsel Fridah Mwanza.
He alleged that the accused, jointly with others not before court, were at a shopping center in Nairobi on Jan. 16, and were found in possession of two kilograms of TNT explosive in a saloon car.
Eyewitnesses told the police that they saw two men of Somali origin on a motorbike riding off from the shopping center after the bullet-riddled car was driven there.
Sources within the airport suspect a car which failed to stop at the security barrier to be the same one that was found at the shopping center.
Source: Shanghai Daily
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