{"id":4866,"date":"2013-10-12T14:56:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T18:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=4866"},"modified":"2013-10-12T20:40:15","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T00:40:15","slug":"kenya-charges-a-terror-suspect-linked-to-the-westgate-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/4866","title":{"rendered":"Kenya charges suspect linked to Westgate attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>A Kenyan man has been charged for allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks and for being in possession of explosives<\/p>\n

The hearing took place\u00a0at\u00a0a court in Kenya\u2019s port city of Mombasa.<\/p>\n

Kenyan authorities say the suspect, Swaleh Abdallah Said, may be linked to last month\u2019s attack on the Westgate mall. He is reportedly\u00a0part of a group that finances and aids the recruitment of new fighters for the islamist militant group, Al-Shabab.<\/p>\n

According to a Senior officer in the anti terrorism Police unit, Said has been on the \u201cterror radar since 2004 when he joined Al Shabab.\u201dAuthorities suspect he has undergone paramilitary training in Somalia.<\/p>\n

He was arraigned in court on Friday where\u00a0he denied all the charges against\u00a0him. Mombasa Senior Resident Magistrate Richard Odenyo then directed that he be remanded at a Police station for four days after which the court will rule on the case.<\/p>\n

The prosecution had previously requested the court to allow\u00a0about four days for thorough investigations and information gathering which could lead to the arrest of Said\u2019s accomplices. Chief prosecutor Simon Waithaka said “We are requesting four days to conclude investigations because we are linking the accused to the recent acts of terrorism at Westgate in Nairobi.\u201d The suspect has been remanded at the Makupa Police Station.<\/p>\n

The accused was arrested at Likoni area of Mombasa on Thursday morning by officers from the country\u2019s Anti Terrorism Police Unit. He later led the officers to his home in Mombasa where they found a grenade and other explosives, two mobile phones and passports.<\/p>\n

The Kenyan government has increased its efforts against terrorism since Alshabab claimed responsibility for the September 21st attack on Nairobi\u2019s Westgate shopping mal, which left 67 people dead. This was the worst attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing on the\u00a0U.S. Embassy building\u00a0in Nairobi. Eight people are being held in connection with\u00a0the attack but only four have been named.<\/p>\n

Another terror suspect, Said Nassir Haddir, was arrested on Thursday in connection with\u00a0this attack. According to Mombasa county Police commander Robert Kitur, the 19 year old student who holds a valid Tanzanian passport communicated with some of the terror suspects who are being held by the police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Kenyan man has been charged for allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks and for being in possession of explosives The hearing took place\u00a0at\u00a0a court in Kenya\u2019s port city of Mombasa. Kenyan authorities say the suspect, Swaleh Abdallah Said,…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4993],"tags":[42],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4866"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}