Former national assembly deputy speaker Farah Maalim summoned by anti-terrorism police unit

Former national assembly deputy speaker Farah Maalim

By GEOFFREY MOSOKU

Former national assembly deputy speaker Farah Maalim has been summoned by police to record a statement over his remarks on the ongoing security swoops.

Maalim was summoned by anti-terrorism police unit (ATPU) over public statements he has been making criticizing the police and linking terror activities to the state.

“I have been called by police to appear at the ATPU headquarters tomorrow (Thursday) at 11 am and will dutifully honour that,” he said.

The outspoken former Lagdera MP told the Standard that he will be appearing before sleuths in the presence of his lawyers and says everything he has been articulating.

He received the calls after appearing at a local TV station yesterday morning and earlier interview that he had given to a Mombasa based radio station.

“They told me that I had been interviewed by Radio Salaam and also appeared on Citizen TV; the contents of which they want more clarification,” he added.

Last evening a defiant Maalim said he will take his campaign to the public court and dismissed the security swoops as akin to profiling members of the Somali community.

“I will tell the public that what police are doing is not fighting terror but targeting one community and that police are not interested in cracking down terror groups,” he added.

Maalim reiterated his early claims that police were complacent in the fight against radicalization of youths and anti-terror campaign.

“The police are behind all these terror incidents and I will tell the public that, we have evidence that police are given information which they don’t act upon for reasons known to them,” the ex-MP added.

He faulted the killing of Muslim clerics saying the unresolved murders were testimony that those behind them were hell bent to conceal the truth since the police failed to arrest them and charge them in a court of law.

Last week, Maalim told a press conference at Orange House that the anti-terror swoop in Eastleigh was a government gimmick to mend the relationship between Nairobi and the west which have thaw.

And yesterday, he repeated the same saying everything that he has said six in the public domain and warned that threw mass deportation of Somalis from Kenya was jeopardizing the security of Kenyans working in Somali.  

“We already received information that over 25,000 Kenyans who are in Somali may be repatriated as a result of what we have done to refugees.”

The summoning of Maalim came even as President Uhuru Kenyatta played host to MPs from the Somali community who petitioned him at State House.

The morning meeting was led by leader of Majority Aden Duale and discussed the ongoing operation which has threatened to create divisions even within the ruling coalition.

Although, the details of the meeting were scanty, sources said that President Uhuru assured the leaders that the government was not discriminating against any community and will protect innocent Kenyans while rooting out criminals.

The President is understood to have reiterated that his government will not exclude Muslim leaders in its strategy to fight terror and sought their help to identify worship and religious centres that are used to recruit and radicalize youths.