MOMBASA, KENYA: Suspected British terrorist Jermaine Grant was on Wednesday convicted to nine years in jail by Mombasa High Court over forgery charges.
Grant was charged with nine charges of forgery including attempts to prepare a birth certificate, a school leaving certificate and trying to acquire a Kenyan Identity Card being a Briton national.
High Court Judge Martin Muya passed the verdict after he found that Grant was the main accomplice in the forgery of the documents
“I find the accused to be the main accomplice in the forgery of the documents and here by sentence him to nine years in jail with each count attracting one year,” said Muya. “You have 14 days to appeal.”
Grant who is associated with Samantha Lewthwhite Alias White widow the mastermind of The Westgate Mall terror attacks also faces other charges of being in possession of explosives.
Grant has previously served three years jail term at Shimo La Tewa for being in the country illegally being a British national.
Grant denied making false statement for registration of birth, three counts of procuring execution of a document by false pretences and one count of attempting to procure registration by false pretences.
The other charges include making a false document and three counts of uttering a false testimony.
On Tuesday Muya overturned a ruling by the lower court acquitting Grant of all the nine forgery counts he was charged with in 2011.
Muya said the chief magistrate Anastacia Ndungu failed to take into consideration the fact that Grant was an accomplice in the forgery of a birth certificate.
In his ruling Muya said that Ndungu had faulted to take into consideration the point that it was grant who had approached his accomplices to forge a birth certificate for him.
“The magistrate did not deliberate on the issue of joint offenders yet when an offense is committed, each person is guilty of the offense and should be charged with the offense,” said Muya.
Judge Muya said Grant had a case to answer on all the nine counts considering all the witnesses testimonies and statements and sighted authorities.
Muya said the magistrate failed to consider that Grant had told District Commissioner Malindi he was from United States of America.
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