Witness: Suspects made hundreds of calls in days

Suspected ivory smuggler Feisal Mohammed Ali and his four co-accused talked on phone 140 times between May 29 and June 5, 2014.

Call record data from Safaricom extracted by a criminal intelligence analyst attached to the telco and presented before court on Friday by Criminal Intelligence Analyst David Kiboi, indicates that Feisal communicated with Abdul Halim Sadiq, Ghalib Sadiq Kara, Abdulmajeed Ibrahim, Juma Wekesa and Kassim Shughuli.

Feisal Mohammed (left), the ivory smuggling suspect, consults his lawyer Gikandi Ngibuini, one of his lawyers during a mention of his case at the Mombasa Court in Mombasa County on Monday 23rd November 2015. The case was being mentioned so as to allocate the case another court after Principal Magistrate Davis Karani, who was hearing the case, was suspended by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). (PHOTO/KELVIN KARANI/ STANDARD)

Mr Kiboi testified before Mombasa Principal Magistrate Diana Mochache that the cell phone numbers extracted and presented to him by chief inspector Momo Shamala, who is attached to Safaricom Law Enforcement Office, belong to the suspects.

Feisal is accused alongside Sadiq, Kara, Ibrahim and Parvers Noor Mohamed of trafficking 314 pieces of ivory worth Sh44 million on June 6, 2014 between Kenya and the Far East. They deny the charges and are free on bond except for Feisal who was arrested in Tanzania in December 2014.

The case collapsed last December due to ineligible records inherited from a suspended magistrate amid claims of crime scene tampering. It began afresh on January 13 this year.

Wekesa and Shughuli are prosecution witnesses.

According to the analyst, over 100 calls were made by Feisal and over 55 calls were made back to Feisal by the co-accused whose numbers are listed above.

"From my chart, the analysis established there were a total of 100 outgoing calls from Feisal to Sadik and 44 incoming calls from Sadik to Feisal between 4 and 6 2014," said Kiboi.

There were over 84 calls made by Feisal to Sadik the alleged manager of Fuji Motors where the ivory was found on the night of June 4, 2014. Sadik also called back Faisal 36 times on the same night of June 4, 2014

Kiboi said that Feisal's number was the control number because it was a number of references that he was using to verify against other phone numbers.

Feisal made 13 calls to Kara, one of the owners of Fuji Motors, and received six return calls from Kara on the June 4 2014 at various times.

He however said at one point, Feisal's number was located at Congo Mansion.

He said Kara's location as he communicated with Faisal was Tudor in Mombasa. "The location of Sadik when communicating with Feisal was Makupa Circus Tudor, Majengo and Mvita in Mombasa. Other contacts show blank in the location column," said Kiboi.

The calls between Faisal and Hamed were seven, Faisal made six calls and Hamed made one return call.

There were ten calls from Faisal to Shughuli with seven calls originating from Faisal and three return calls from Shughuli.