Two men were yesterday charged with illegal gun possession in Mombasa.
The two were on January 5 found with two guns stolen from a soldier and a policeman killed in Mombasa in 2014 and last year.
Mohammed Mwichande, who fnished Form Four in 2014, and Mahmoud Salim Mohamed, a former college student at Ammarcon College in Malindi are also under investigation for alleged links to Al Shabaab, according to police.
Last month, the court allowed police to detain them for 30 days to investigate the alleged terror links. Court documents do not show their ages but relatives claim they are both 19. One of the guns they were found with, an M4, was stolen from George Hongo, a soldier killed during the November 2, 2014 raid on Nyali Barracks in Mombasa. The other was a G3 rifle stolen from a policeman who was killed outside a bank in Mombasa’s Bondeni while on patrol.
Mwichande and Mahmoud are also accused of being involved in violent crime. Police claim the two stole a magazine, which had 30 bullets, during the barracks raid.
Police say when they arrested them on January 5 in Shikamoo, they impounded an improvised explosive device and a liquid believed to an ingredient for an explosive. They also confiscated an identity card belonging to Joyce Nyambura Ndumbi, who was attacked by gangsters at a Spanish booking office in Mombasa on November 23, 2015.
Investigation officers told the court that the accused were part of the group that attacked Nyali Barracks. The M4 riffle, police say, was recovered in a house rented by Mr Mwichande.
The investigating officer told Chief Magistrate Susan Shitubi that other suspects fled when police raided a house in Shikamoo, Majengo. The two suspects, who were represented by lawyer Abubakar Yusuf, denied the charges.
In a sworn affidavit, Mwachinde denied being part of the gang that attacked the barracks in Nyali in 2014 or being a member of Al Shabaab.
And he claimed that police arrested him on January 12, 2016 at his sisters’ house in Kwa Shari and not on January 5, 2016 as alleged by the State. He denied renting the house in Shikamoo where the weapons were recovered.
“On November 2, 2014 during the barracks attack, I was sitting for my Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams at Mwakitawe Secondary School in Taita,” said Mwachinde.
