By Tobias Chanji and Paul Gitau
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Mombasa, Kenya : A special squad of anti-terror police officers flown in from Nairobi and Mombasa have killed the man believed to have masterminded Tuesday’s murder of a former police reservist, Ahmed Abdalla Bakhswein.
Reports indicate that detectives had obtained footage of Ali Mohamed Delawa from a close circuit TV captured by a camera near where Bakhshwein was gunned down that positively identified the slain man as the killer of the spy. Police claim Delawa returned recently from training with Al Shabaab.
The footage identified Delawa as the gunman who shot three times at the former reservist at 8.30 am on Tuesday as he sat in his car by the roadside, according to John Ndungu, the Malindi DCIO.
Postings by radical islamist supporters of slain militant Sheikh Aboud Rogo on Facebook also confirmed the latest killing by police describing Bakhshwein as a traitor who met a just fate.
The postings included pictures of two dead men on the floor of what looked like a cemetery, suggesting that police killed two terror suspects following Bakhswein's murder.
“From the CCTV footage that we have, this is the man who shot Bakhshwein. Even the clothes and cap in the footage are similar with the one he is still wearing today,” he said moments after identifying the slain man as Ali Mohamed who was killed in a ten minute shoot- out with police in Ngala phase three estate.
Reports show two accomplices of the slain man fled on a motorcycle into the thicket while firing at police. Eyewitnesses said Delawa and his accomplices opened fire first after discovering they had been cornered by police. Police have denied reports that an officer was killed or injured in the firefight.
The Standard has established that Delawa most likely entered Malindi on Sunday after fleeing a police dragnet at his Mwabungo in Kwale County. His wife Mwanaidi Kamole was arrested and an AK 47 rifle, military gear and 38 bullets found on her.
Reports also indicate that Bakhshwein travelled to the US for counter-terrorism training following the August 7, 1997 terrorist attack in Nairobi after serving in the Kenya Reserve force since 1984. Sources say that Bakhshwein who spoke several languages including Arabic and Somali also travelled to Somalia often and assisted US counter-terrorist forces to track down East African foreign jihadists in Kenya.
He and his former colleague Faiz Mohamed Bwarusi were linked to a counter-insurgency operation that led to the August 28 2012 killing of radical islamist Sheikh Aboud Rogo.