Three girls charged for concealing information about police raid

By Joackim Bwana

The three girls linked to the Mombasa Central Police Station failed terror raid have been charged for withholding crucial information that would have alerted the police of the September 11 attack.

These three are alleged to have been former classmates of Ramla Abdulrahman Hussein one of the women killed during the incident. Ramla’s sister Maimuna Abdulrahman Hussein and Tasmin Yakub Abdullahi Farah also died in the attack.

On Friday, the widow of radical preacher Sheikh Aboud Rogo Haniya Saggar Said was charged with the same crime which she denied. Nasteho Ali Thalil, Luul Ali Tahlil and Zam Zam Abdi, allegedly attended Qubaa Secondary School in Mombasa where they sat for the Form Four exams last year alongside one of the sisters.

They were arrested on Tuesday and freed on Thursday by a magistrate but were rearrested within minutes outside the court and charged on Friday evening at Shanzu Law Courts.

The three, who appeared before Principal Magistrate Diana Mochache, denied the charges and were detained until Tuesday next week when the bond application will be heard and determined.

One of the sisters studied with Tasmin at Qubaa Secondary School while the other schooled at Abdalla Farsy Secondary School in Mombasa. Police arrested the three suspects at Mombasa County Police headquarters where they had been summoned after they allegedly confirmed Ramla was their classmate until last year at Qubaa Secondary School.

Defence lawyers Jared Magolo told the court that it is not a crime for his clients to have communicated with the slain women.

However, yesterday senior State prosecutor Alexander Muteti said they would be consolidating the file of the three girls with the late Aboud Rogo’s wife case. Rogo’s wife faces the same charges of withholding information to prevent the terror attack at the station.

Muteti said prosecution had decided to move the case to Shanzu Law Courts after Principal Magistrate Henry Nyakweba pronounced himself from the matter by releasing the three girls. Rogo’s wife was charged on Friday separately for withholding information that could have prevented the terror attack.

The State claims Saggar knew Tasmin six days before the raid. Saggar denied the allegation with her lawyer Chacha Mwita saying the charge sheet as presented by the police does not disclose any crime.

The three girls were rearrested by police on Thursday evening minutes after Mombasa Principal Magistrate Henry Nyakweba declined to detain them in custody to allow police investigate them.

In his ruling Nyakweba dismissed a police application to detain the trio for seven days, saying there were not enough grounds to detain them. “The courts cannot detain the suspects over skeleton information, the grounds presented are not enough to detain the suspects and the court releases the suspects unconditionally,” said Nyakweba.

Magolo, representing the girls, told the court that one of the suspects was an epileptic with a heart ailment and opposed a State application for orders to detain them for a week, pending investigations.

Police claim the two sisters Nasteho, Luul and Zam Zam have been in telephone communication with Hussein, one of the women who died during the botched terror attack.

Police reports claim the suspects told interrogators that they were in contact with one of the slain women in an internet chat room. It is not clear which of the slain woman police were referring to.

Police claim the slain women raided the station with knives and petrol and attacked police officers before they were shot dead.

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