Three suspects found guilty in Garissa University terror attack

[Deeq A.]

Three suspects were on Wednesday convicted over the 2015 Garissa University terror attack.

Nairobi Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi found Mohamed Ali Abdikar, Hassan Aden Hassan and Rashid Charles Mberesero, a Tanzanian, were involved in the attack that left 148 people dead.

Andayi, however, freed Sahal Diry Hussein, saying he cannot be linked to the attack just because he was found in the company of one of the attackers.

Prosecutors had proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” that “they knew the plot,” he said but did not give further details of the alleged conspiracy.

The Nairobi court will sentence the trio on July 3.

The three convictions are the first to result from a long-running investigation and prosecution.

All four gunmen were killed by security forces. The operation’s suspected ringleader, Mohamed Mohamud, also named “Kuno,” a former professor at a Koranic school in Garissa, was killed in southwestern Somalia in 2016.

The Shabaab said he had been killed by “US crusaders”.

The group is fighting to overthrow the internationally backed government in Mogadishu.

But it also regularly carries out attacks in neighboring Kenya, which has troops in Somalia as part of an African Union force.

View the full article