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| Africa Horn |
| Warrants out for two over Coast riots |
| 2012-09-07 |
| [Daily Nation (Kenya)] A court on Thursday issued warrants of arrest against two men who police claim incited youths to attack churches and kill coppers and moderate Mohammedan holy mans. This was in response to the killing of Islamic preacher Aboud Rogo early last week, which triggered three days of riots in Mombasa. Four people, including three prison warders, were killed in the riots in which four churches were looted and set ablaze. Mombasa senior principal magistrate Joyce Gandani issued the warrants against Mr Aboud Awadh and Mr Amani Almasi. The two men failed to attend court to plead to the charges after they were separately charged with two counts of incitement to violence. The case will now be mentioned on September 24. This will bring to 27 the number of people so far charged over the riots. The two men are accused of uttering the inflammatory words: "Imam wote wanaoungana na serikali wachinjwe na pia polisi yeyote akionekana auwawe" -- (Loosely translated to mean all Mohammedan preachers who are taking sides with the government should be slaughtered, and any police officer seen should be killed). According to the prosecution, these words were meant to bring death or physical injury to any class of persons, community or body of persons. Destruction of property The two also allegedly uttered the words: "Makanisa yote Mombasa yachomwe" -- (All churches in Mombasa should be burned) -- words intended to lead to the damage or destruction of property. The offences are alleged to have been committed on August 27 at Masjid Musa in Majengo area, Mombasa. This came barely a day after Mr Abubakar Shariff alias Makaburi, an ally of Sheikh Rogo, was slapped with more charges relating to the riots. Mr Shariff, who denied the three charges, is in remand custody until September 17 when Mombasa senior resident magistrate Elvis Michieka will rule on whether he should be freed on bond. He had initially been charged with one count of incitement to violence. In a related development, the team mandated to investigate the shooting of Sheikh Rogo on Thursday promised to explore all avenues to get to the bottom of the matter. The chairman of the team, Mr Jacob Ondari, said that despite lacking witnesses, the Sherlocks will use all means to collect evidence and ensure that justice is done to the aggrieved. "We shall not leave any aspect, which might help us to get evidence linking the suspects of the killing even if we shall be forced to get a court order to exhume the body to conduct postmortem," Mr Ondari, an Assistant Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, said. |
| Posted by:Fred |