Terror suspect freed for lack of evidence

A man who has been in police custody for two weeks on allegations of involvement in terrorism has been freed after the court found no evidence to link him to the crime.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) through State Counsel Lydiah Ombega told the court that after a careful scrutiny of the suspect’s, communication, there was no evidence advanced to show he was involved in extremism.

Rashid Abdalla was arrested on January 27 after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) received a tip off from the public.

According to a sworn affidavit by Inspector Sore, the suspect was said to have been recruiting youth to join the Somali-based Al-shabaab terror group.

Sore who was the investigating officer applied to be allowed to scrutinize the suspect’s phone conversation and mobile money transactions after he was alleged to be receiving money to fund the militia.

The DCI is said to have received intelligence report from the public that the suspect was radicalising   youth in Kakamega town a few days after the Dusit D2 Hotel that left 21 people dead in Nairobi last month.

The court granted custodial orders for 14 days to enable the DCI piece together information which could have seen Abdalla face trial.

However, after spending two weeks with Abdalla, the investigators are said to have lacked sufficient evidence to warrant his trial and prayed that he be discharged.

“After the investigations were complete, the DCI and the ODPP have carefully considered the evidence on record. However, the same cannot sustain any charge since it is too scanty. We therefore pray that the suspect be discharged and the miscellaneous file closed,” said Ms Ombega.

Kakamega Chief Magistrate ordered the file closed and the suspect freed unconditionally.