Couple charged 'for lying' about kidnap and abortion

Mohamed Abdulrahman (left) and his wife Saida Abdulahman Barak at the Mombasa Court in Mombasa County on Tuesday 8th January 2019, where Mohamed denied giving false information to a police officer by reporting that his 8 months pregnant wife was missing, information he knew was false. [Photo: Standard]

A man who allegedly colluded with his wife to fake an abortion and abduction have been charged with giving police false information.

Mohamed Abdulrahman and his wife Saida Abdulahman Barak were yesterday charged in a Mombasa court with two counts of giving false information to police officers and lying to the doctors at Coast Provincial Hospital about a pregnancy and abortion that never existed last year.

The two were charged with giving police false information thereby causing the police to search for Barak.

Barak, who was 20-years-old then, had been reported missing from her home in Majengo on September 23 last year and found in Majengo slum in Nairobi four days later.

Barak reportedly told police she had been kidnapped by four women on her way to Malindi, where she had gone to board a plane to Lamu, but police questioned why a family allowed a supposed, heavily pregnant woman to travel alone to Malindi by road or why she could not fly directly from Mombasa.

She later called her husband and narrated her ordeal at the hands of the alleged kidnappers, who she said were demanding a ransom before her phone went off. The tale has been discredited.

Barak also informed her family that she was eight months pregnant and later claimed that she had lost the pregnancy after her abductors injected her with a labor-inducing chemical.

She said she woke up hours later, and was bleeding after her abductors allegedly pulled out her foetus. From last year's reports, which caused a sensation, even sucking in rights groups, the alleged victim stumbled out of a house she was being held in at a Nairobi slum and was rescued by good Samaritans who took her to a hospital in Pangani.

The tale was twisted when doctors at Coast General Hospital established that she had not been pregnant hence could not have lost a foetus. They said she could not conceive due to some medical problem.

A gynecologist’s report indicated she never conceived nor lost a foetus and that she was sterile due to a problem with her uterus.

A psychiatrist’s report showed she was of sound mind and fit to face court.

Yesterday, the two, appearing before Resident Magistrate Christine Ogweno, denied the charges and were each released on Sh100,000 bond with surety of the same amount.

Attempts by their lawyer to have them released on Sh10,000 cash bail were thwarted by the magistrate, who said the bond terms were sufficient.

Abdulrahman had informed police constable Cyrus Mbugua that his eight months pregnant wife was missing. However, he had informed his mother-in-law that his wife had taken a flight to Lamu.