37 years in jail for two Westgate Terror Attack suspects

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 30- A Nairobi court jailed for 37 years two men accused of taking part in the Westgate Mall terror attack in 2013 that left at least 67 people dead.

Mohammed Ahmed Abdi was jailed for 26 years while Hussein Hassan Mustafa will spend 11 years in jail respectively for their role in the attack that caught security personnel off guard.

The sentencing came after being postponed at least three times. This was after the trial court had found the two guilty of the offenses they were accused of.

Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi jailed Abdi to 33 years and Mustafa to 18 years but considered the seven years trial period behind bars as time served.

He had postponed the sentencing last week saying he needed the men’s probation report first before making the decision.
The prosecution had asked for at least 20 years for the suspects.

Prosecutor Edwin Okello told the court that only nine victims had last week recorded their statement and that the probation officer required seven days to complete the recording of the remaining statements.

The court was last week informed that a third accused person Liban Omar who was acquitted by the court was abducted by unknown people and his whereabouts remains unknown.

Okello told the court that the matter was being investigated by the police.

The magistrate told the defense counsels to report the matter to the Kenya Human Rights Commission for further investigations.

The three were put on their defence in January 2019, when the court found that they had a case to answer, and required them to defend themselves in the trial.

At the time, the fourth accused person Adan Dheq was acquitted for lack of evidence linking him to the attack.

The four had been jointly and separately accused of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and being members of the Al-Shabaab terror group among other charges.

The attack was said to be a retaliation by the terrorist group in Kenya for deploying troops to Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab.

Kenyan troops have been in Somalia under AMISOM since 2011 fighting the terror group which controls some parts of the Horn of Africa Nation.

The prosecution said they found evidence of newly activated SIM cards used by the gunmen who died at the mall in a car they had driven to the location.

Their communication was traced to Abdi and Mustafa who are now the accused.