KDF officer claim terrorists tried to infiltrate highly guarded army base

The two are suspected to have been behind the Assanands House, Moi Avenue bomb blast. After Erdogan’s arrest in Tanzania this week, however, ATPU officers chose not to seek his extradition to Kenya for trial or interrogation over the Assanands attack or any other terror activity.

Says Musila when told of the incident: “It sounds strange and shocking.” The Assistant minister had not been briefed on the matter. The police are also sceptical.

Something rewarding
Maina says he is now afraid he may be court-martialed for failing to report a security threat or harmed by the suspected terrorist of Somali origin who tried to wrest vital security information from him.

Capt Thomas Mwanga, confirmed SP Maina is under investigation. He says DoD want him to shed light on why he travelled out of the country without clearance. He added military intelligence is in possession of a statement Maina recorded with the ATPU. He says the fact that Maina did not report the matter immediately raises serious questions about him and his story.

“His own conduct raises serious questions about his credibility,” he says. “If he feared for the safety of his family, what stops the same people he claims threatened him from coming for him and the family (now that he has contacted the media)?”

Police officers who have interrogated him say there are loose ends in his allegations that need to be tidied up before his information can be treated as credible. He seems to have been pressured into joining the army in 2007 by his father, a senior ranking military officer, and to have been dissatisfied with his low rank and poor pay.

At the time he went away, his Laikipia-based wife was pregnant, taking care of a three-month-old child and looking for a school for their five-year-old. He was also struggling to repay a loan he had taken from the Co-operative Bank of Kenya.

In his statement he admits telling his father and wife, both in the armed forces, he wanted to leave his job with the KDF medical battalion for something more rewarding. Indeed, it was only after a failed attempt to get work in Dubai that he returned home claiming to have fled for his life.

Police officers doubt the officer was approached to join the terror group or run errands for them. But they do not rule out the possibility of Al Shabaab plotting to breach security at military bases and are continuing their investigations.

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