Court finds driver in Cuban doctors’ kidnap guilty

Issack Ibrein Robow at a Milimani court on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. [Collins Kweyu, Standard]

A former Mandera County Government driver has been found guilty of participating in the kidnap of two Cuban doctors in 2019.

Issack Ibrein Robow, who was driving the two Cuban doctors who were abducted and taken to Somalia, will be sentenced on March 2.

Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Nanzushi found him guilty of taking part in the kidnap of Dr Assel Herrera Correa and Dr Landy Rodrigues Hernandez. The first charge stated that on April 12, 2019 at 9am, the accused while in Mandera town, commissioned a terrorist act jointly with others not before court.

The count added that the act caused the death of a police officer Mutundo Katambo who was attached to the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit at Mandera East. Katambo had been deployed on escort duties of the two doctors who had been seconded to Mandera County Referral Hospital.

The second charge read that on the same day, time and venue, Robow facilitated the kidnapping of the two doctors.

Nanzushi, in her judgement, said Robow who had worked and resided in Mandera County for more than 15 years, had supplied the abductors with all information regarding the two doctors and escort police officers.

Soon after the kidnap, the abductors crossed to Somalia with the doctors where they were reported to have been treating Al Shabaab militants for two months before they were released.

Robow was arrested in Mandera and flown to Nairobi on April 12, 2019, and was presented in court four days later.