Suspects detained for killing US citizen in Likoni

Sunday, September 08, 2013

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Detectives in Mombasa are holding two suspects including a 15 year old minor linked to the murder of a 19 year old, a naturalised US citizen believed to have been raped before being killed.

Sources indicate the US' Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI will join the investigation to assist Kenyan detectives with forensics.

On Friday, Mombasa Resident Magistrate Vicky Kochuodho ordered the two suspects to be detained for seven days to allow detectives conduct DNA and analyses on them and on the corpse.

“I have allowed you to collect blood samples for forensic examination and analysis. I also ordered that the suspects to be remanded in police custody for seven days to complete investigations," she said following an application by CID officer Osuri Otieno.

Jamila Aweso Haji's body was discovered on Friday in an abandoned building in Likoni bearing bruises on the abdomen, hands and legs.

Soil was stuffed in her reproductive organ and detectives reported that semen was found on her clothes. Reports indicate that the former refugee from Somalia who recently acquired US citizenship had returned to Kenya on September 1 to meet her family.

One of the suspects in detention is her male cousin who police claim was arrested because he could not explain how she disappeared after they were last seen together.

Ironically it is this suspect-Mohamed Bashir Mohamed, 31, who reported her disappearance to the police.

It is alleged that Jamila went out with the suspect to buy airtime never to return. The other suspect was arrested on Friday like his alleged accomplice after giving an unsatisfactory account of where and how the corpse was discovered.

The suspect, allegedly told police that the corpse was recovered from a pit latrine and stuffed in a drum in the abandoned building but detectives appear unconvinced and want to question him more.

On Friday Osuri said in a sworn affidavit that he needed more time to investigate the suspects before deciding whether to charge them.

“I am a police officer attached to Likoni Divisional CID headquarters investigating a murder case reported on September 4,” said the officer.

Detectives suspect the detainees were planning to move the body from the building to dispose it in the nearby ocean.

Before the incident the police said the woman came to Kenya in August to visit family members. She allegedly stayed for sometimes in Kenya before travelling to Tanzania and returning to Kenya on September 1.

Otieno told the magistrate that after the woman came back, she decided to visit her uncle at Likoni where she was murdered.

She hailed from the minority Zigua clan of ethnic Somali Bantu who were naturalised by the US in 2001 and relocated to the US to escape persecution at Dadaab refugee camp.

The US had declared them a persecuted group in Somalia and naturalised 10,000 of them at the Kenyan refugee camp.

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