Sunday March 12, 2017
By ALPHONCE GARI
The six terror suspects arrested in Malindi on Friday night are believed to have been financing al Shabaab, officers have said.
Those arrested were Salim Abdulkarim, his wife Nuru Swaleh, their daughters Fatma Salim, Feiruz Salim and Khadija Namaan and relative Abdulkarim Salim who was nabbed in Majengo.
More on this: Six terror suspects arrested in action-packed Malindi night raid
Police boss Matawa Muchangi said Hadija Swaleh, an 80-year old woman who was not taken into police custody because of her age, was another suspect.
Muchangi said she was the mother of Bajina Moslem, a most wanted terrorist who fled with the late al Qaeda leader Fazul Mohamed to Somalia in 2008.
He said Mohamed escaped a police dragnet in Malindi in 2008 and has never returned home.
Moslem is reportedly still in Somalia and is allegedly being financed by the suspects who were arrested.
The police boss said preliminary investigations revealed that the family had been sending money to Moslem and the terror group based in Somalia.
Muchangi said Swaleh had been in touch with her son and often sent him money.
“They normally collect the money from sympathisers,’’ he told the Star in a phone interview on Sunday.
The police boss added that the suspect arrested in Majengo may be one of al Shabaab's key financiers.
“We are still holding the suspects. Investigations are in top gear to establish their links with terror activities," he said.
But the family denied the claims that they were linked to al Shabaab and said police harassed them during the raid.
Swaleh, who has three grandchildren, said on Saturday that the agents shot in the air upon arrival and demanded to know who she was and who she was staying with.
“I was beaten when I tried standing up after hearing someone crying upstairs,’’ she said, adding the officers harassed her and did not let her speak.
She was later taken to hospital.
Fatma Swaleh said they were afraid because they were "subjected to torture" and that the children witnessed the whole operation.