Five suspects detained over the bombing of an Israeli-owned Mombasa hotel were remanded in custody after their charges were dropped by a lower court but then filed anew before a High Court judge. The suspects, who pleaded not guilty to 15 counts of murder, were charged before High Court Judge Tom Mbaluto soon after a magistrate in a lower court ordered their release following the prosecutor's decision to drop the earlier charges.
| "Well, they said they were innocent, so I let them go..." |
The judge said the trial was to take place in an open court where members of the public can listen to the proceedings. The accused were arrested in connection with the car bombing that killed 12 Kenyans and three Israelis at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, on November 28 last year. Three bombers are presumed to have died in the attack, which together with a near-miss missile attack on a jet carrying Israeli tourists, was claimed by al-Qaeda. Last month, in a change in procedural rules, jurisdiction over murder cases was removed from the magistrates' courts, and they can be tried only before High Court judges.
| Oh, inconvenient, that... |
The magistrate's decision to order the freeing of the suspects earlier was apparently only a technical move designed to pave the way for charging and subsequently trying the accused in the High Court. The suspects were brought to court early in the morning amid tight security. Armed police and prison wardens stood guard in the court corridors as the accused were charged. Mbaluto ordered that the suspects be produced in court again on September 18 "with a view to fixing a date of hearing". Four of the accused — Salmin Mohamed Khamisi, father and son Mohamed Kubwa and Mohamed Kubwa Seif, Said Saggar Ahmed and Aboud Rogo Mohamed — were initially charged on June 24. The fifth man, Salmin Mohamed Khamisi, was charged on July 8. The suspects were all picked up from Kenya's Indian Ocean costal region. "This is not what we can call a normal murder case," said prosecutor John Gacivih. "It is a matter that needs technical reports," he added, suggesting that the trial could take a long time. One of the defence lawyers Maobe Mao urged the prosecution to expedite the preparation and presentation before the court of witness statements and other exhibits.
| "Let's get this thing under way before you have time to put together an air-tight case..." |
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