Improving society, building country key to win war on terror

The sight of suspects linked to the dusitD2 hotel terror attack sitting peacefully in a Nairobi courthouse is painful for all Kenyans. It was just a week ago that dozens of our countrymen and women were killed, maimed and injured in the violence. Souls were taken, lives ruined, and families ripped apart. I am of course a committed believer in the rule of law, the independence of the courts and the right to a fair trial. These principles and rights are at the heart of our criminal justice system.

Yet despite this, there is something unedifying about witnessing individuals – accused of meticulously devising, planning, funding and executing a terror attack that killed over twenty of our brethren – sitting peacefully in a court room, as if they were merely involved in a petty property dispute. For we are only human, as are our instincts. And it is only natural to want terrorists and terror sympathisers to suffer. Not just in court, but really suffer, as they made us suffer.