Court Acquits Four Suspects Linked to JKIA Terror Attack

A Nairobi court on Monday acquitted four suspects linked to a terror attack at Java restaurant at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in 2014 using an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

Hassan Abdi Mohammed, Mohammed Osman Ali, Yusuf Warsame and Garad Hassan Fercharged had been charged with nine counts of being in possession of explosives, falsely acquiring registration, carrying out a terrorism act at the airport, and obtaining passports through fraudulent means.

However, trial magistrate Roselyn Oganyo on Monday ruled they be freed for lack of sufficient evidence.

Judge Oganyo said that the prosecution failed to prove each of the charges facing the four beyond any reasonable doubt, a constitutional threshold required for convicting criminal charges and acquitted them under Section 215 of the criminal procedure code.

“Having considered the evidence adduced before court I find that the prosecution failed to prove its case against each of the accused persons beyond any reasonable doubt,” she ruled.

The suspects denied the charges leveled against them by the police, who also accused them of being members of the Al Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab.

The State said it will lodge an appeal at the high court, saying that the lower court failed to analyze a CCTV footage and misunderstood evidence tabled before it.