Kenya: Police holding man arrested in Mandera suspected to be on transit to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab

NATION AFRICA|NAIROBI: Sometime last month, Paul Bachia Wangui, alias Mohamed, left Laikipia County dressed in a blue matatu driver’s uniform with the intention of travelling to Mandera.

A matatu dropped him off in Isiolo town before he jumped into another destined for Moyale.

From Moyale, he connected to Mandera, arriving in the border town on October 16.

Throughout this journey, Mr Wangui never paid a single cent for transport, because his blue uniform identified him to matatu drivers as one of them.

In the matatu industry, a person dressed in a driver’s blue uniform or a conductor’s maroon shirt and trousers can easily hitchhike on any public service vehicle.

Mr Wangui quickly walked to a mosque in Mandera the following day and converted to Islam.

Police officers on the Kenya-Somalia border arrested him as he wandered in the area on October 21.

On October 24, the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) in Mandera produced Mr Wangui in Mandera court under a miscellaneous application.

Mandera Senior Resident Magistrate Mukabi Kimani allowed the ATPU to hold the suspect for 14 days and investigate why he travelled to Mandera and whether he planned to sneak into Somalia.

The ATPU claims Mr Wangui is a suspected Al-Shabaab spy who was in Mandera to collect information and aid terror activities.

The police said Mr Wangui was found with a mobile phone and five SIM cards.

Mr Wangui hails from Maguyu in Ndaragwa, Nyandarua County.

The police say Mr Wangui is originally from Nyeri County, an area deemed in security circles as a terrorist radicalisation zone and home to Ali Salim Gichunge, the mastermind of the January 2019 Dusit D2 Hotel attack.

The ATPU wants to establish whether Mr Wangui was linked to terror activities in Nyeri and whether he was in communication with terror cells in Somalia.

On Tuesday, state prosecutor Michael Lokitam told the court that police had completed their investigations and were charging Mr Wangui with attempting to depart Kenya through an illegal point.

Mr Lokitam did not reveal the police findings but requested that the miscellaneous file be closed.

Mr Wangui denied the offence and Mandera Senior Resident Magistrate Peter Wasike released him on a Sh100,000 bond with a surety of the same amount.

Security officers Mr Wangui told the court that he had travelled to Mandera in search of a driver’s job and that he was arrested by security officers as he ate in a restaurant.

But though he said he is a driver, he did not have a driving licence.

The case will be mentioned on November 22, and heard on December 1.

A source in the police service said officers were still holding his mobile phone and are still investigating him.

“We want to know all those people he has been in contact with. It is possible for the charge sheet to be amended in case we gather fresh details,” a police officer privy to the matter told Nation.Africa on the condition of anonymity.

Police don’t know whether Mr Wangui sought to join the wanted Al-Shabaab bride Violet Wanjiru, aka Violet Kemunto Omwoyo, aka Khadija, the widow of Salim Gichunge, the man believed to have masterminded the January 15, 2019 Dusit terrorist attack. She slipped out of Kenya the day before the attack at 14 Riverside Drive in Nairobi.

A signal of a mobile phone that she was using indicated she was in Somalia.

Before the attack, Ms Kemunto had sent her luggage by courier service to Mandera town. The baggage that contained personal items, including clothes, was to be picked up the day after the attack.

The luggage was sent from Eastleigh. But Ms Kemunto did not turn up for her luggage, prompting attendants at the courier service to alert police. It is believed she changed her mind for fear of being arrested.

It is suspected she travelled by road, crossing into Somalia the day before the complex was hit.

Some 21 people were killed in the attack at the Dusit D2 luxury hotel and office complex. The siege lasted 19 hours.

Al-Shabaab claimed the mission leader was a Kenyan identified as Ali Salim Gichunge. The others were named as Osman Ahmed Hassan, Abdigani Arap Yusuf, Mohamed Adam Nur and Mahir Khalid.

Khalid was the suicide bomber who died first. He detonated a vest before other terrorists followed with bullets and explosives.

At least three people have since been charged in a Kahawa with aiding terror activities.

The first is known only by the alias Mire Abdulahi, while the second and third are Hussein Mohamed Abdile and Mohamed Abdi Ali.

Security agencies have been unable to confirm Mr Abdulahi’s true identity because all the documents he produced bore different names, including a birth certificate, national ID card and passport. His place of birth was also different on each document.

Mr Abdulahi is charged with providing internet services to the attackers, which they used for communication while planning the attack.

He claimed the internet was for a Norwegian church in Dholo, a town in Somalia. But investigations revealed the internet kit was in fact installed in Jilib, 600km from Dholo.

Jilib is a known Al-Shabaab operation area, from where they plan most of their activities.

Mr Abdille is linked to a Facebook account that was in constant communication with the attackers and other people in Somalia.

He registered two SIM cards to one Isnina, a mentally challenged person in Mandera.

The same line was used to open a Facebook account, which helped one of the attackers to obtain a fake secondary school student identification.

It is the student ID that the attacker used to travel to Nairobi before he carried out the attack.

Mr Ali, who is charged with facilitating an act of terrorism, is out on bond. He sent more than Sh1 million to Nur, one of five terrorist