A look inside terrorists’ cells in Kenya’s most secure prison

Two metres. That is the closest the Nation could get to Elgiva Bwire Oliacha alias Mohamed Saif, Naivasha Maximum Security Prison’s most famous inmate.

Our request to interview him or any of his colleagues had been denied on security grounds but we were granted rare access into their cells. We were not even allowed to exchange greetings. Six officers escorted us to make sure we followed the rules.

“Your request to interview a reformed terrorist was not approved as we may have no such inmate at the moment,” David Macharia, the Assistant Commissioner-General of Prisons, said in a letter.

The last time Bwire was seen in public was on October 27, 2011 as he smiled sheepishly and posed for cameras when Senior Principal Magistrate Grace Macharia sentenced him to death in what could still be the fastest trial of a terrorism suspect in Kenya’s history. It took less than 72 hours from his arrest to sentencing.

Just two days before, police had raided his house in Kayole and recovered 13 hand grenades, four pistols, two submachine guns and 717 rounds of ammunition. During investigations, detectives matched the Russian-type grenades to two terror attacks in Nairobi that had been executed at around that time.

In the first attack, a grenade was hurled into Mwaura’s pub, located in downtown Nairobi, injuring 14. In the second attack, a suicide attacker and one person died when a grenade went off at the OTC bus station injuring 13 people.

It was the second attack that, Mr Bwire would plead guilty to, shocking the nation on the existence of a new breed of terrorists: homegrown terrorists. He would also plead guilty to being a member of al-Shaabab and being in possession of fire arms and ammunition.

But despite the gravity of the situation, the then 28-year-old smiled and even afforded to tell the journalists present; “I am just happy, a sad man is a remorseful man.”

APPEARED JOVIAL

And on Thursday, he still appeared jovial as he, together with three other inmates, played a game of cards and Ludo on an improvised board made of a white cloth. An armed officer watched over them from a watch tower above.

“Ni mimi ndio nashinda kama kawaida (I am the one winning as always),” he told the Assistant Commissioner of Prisons Patrick Mwenda, who is in-charge of the expansive prison.

“Their faces should not fool you. They look harmless but the harm they can do is a lot. They are the new “Category One” criminals in the system and other prisoners need to be safeguarded from them,” Mr Mwenda would later tell the Nation.

“It is a prison within a prison,” Mr Mwenda says.

“To prevent them from radicalising other inmates, those convicted of terrorism or are still suspects should not mingle with other prisoners because you know idle people are the easiest to convert to extremism,” he says.

Built in 1911, Naivasha Maximum Security Prison is the country’s most guarded and biggest in terms of size and capacity, holding 2,791 inmates all of whom are serving long sentences with the shortest being at least 20 years. About three quarters of its inmates are on death row.

The prison itself is a 20-acre fortress secured by a massive presence of armed wardens, strict protocol and formidable architecture and escaping from it is almost an impossibility. It has three perimeter walls, one after the other and at least seven watch towers on each side.

However, the most secure block is the segregation block, which holds prisoners convicted of terrorism and those whose cases are still ongoing. Kenya Prisons would not allow us to say exactly where the block is located or how many inmates it holds.

To get inside the segregation block, one has to pass through five gates that run from the ceiling to the floor. The gates are locked at all times and only specific wardens can access the area. Visitors are not allowed and there is a warden in the block at all times.

MEDICAL INTERN

But among its tenants is Mr Mohammed Abdi Ali, who until his arrest in May, was a medical intern at Wote Hospital, after police foiled an alleged planned biological attack.

After his arrest, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet said Mr Ali plus two others, who are also in custody but not at the facility, were planning a large scale attack akin to that of the Westgate Mall attack. Their case is still ongoing.

Mr Bwire, whose mother told the media that he sleeps in cell R5 and appears to be very organised and is an avid reader. Inside his cell, a pile of books especially on Islam, stands on one corner next to a white bucket. His cell was very clean and a mattress that acts as his sleeping area was well spread and a green Islamic prayer mat was spread at the centre with its niche, representation of the Mirhab of a mosque facing the door.

The Mirhab is a semicircular niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca which Muslims should face while praying.

However, unlike other prisoners who during the day are allowed to work in the prison industries, attend classes or leisure activities like sports, these inmates stay inside their block at all times. Food is brought to them and they are only allowed 15 minutes with their visitors under the supervision of an officer, who listens in on the conversation.

Each inmate sleeps in their own cell, where lights are never switched off.

It is a challenge the prison system is finding itself having to face as Kenya continues to grapple with of homegrown terrorism. At least 100 prisoners out of the 221,000 inmates in Kenya’s prisons are accused of being extremists. They are mostly held in Shimo La Tewa and Naivasha.

“As a country, we are just beginning to understand the challenge of rehabilitating this new category of offenders and we still don’t have the professional, technical and operational skills to handle terrorism suspects,” says Mr Macharia.

‘KENYAN THING’

“This is not just a Kenyan thing. There is no country in the world that has the proper programmes to rehabilitate or imprison terrorists,” he says.

During a pass out ceremony for prison officers in February, President Uhuru Kenyatta said there are plans to construct a separate prison for terrorists in order to keep them out of the country’s crowded jails.

“This counterterrorism strategy would help tackle radicalisation in jails and prevent prisons becoming a recruitment target for extremists,” he said.

But can the prison system change the ideological beliefs of a person, something the society has failed to do? Experts say that by placing emphasis on security concerns over the potential to reform radicalised prisoners, the government could be missing out on a huge opportunity to de-radicalise terrorists.

“Isolation is definitely effective in preventing terrorists from radicalising others. But it does not solve the root of the problem because it is disengagement from society that makes someone to develop extremist beliefs in the first place,” observes Dr Philomena Ndambuki, psychologist and director of Mentorship at the Kenyatta University (KU).

On Tuesday, French prison guards said they had foiled plans for a terror attack by a group of jihadists at the Fleury-Mérogis, Europe’s largest prison located south of Paris.

According to UK’s Times Newspaper 10 radicalised Muslims had to be transferred from the prison after they managed to create a network of extremists within the prison. 

A report released last year by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) that studied extremism in prisons in 15 countries said that although jails are places of vulnerability they can also serve as incubators for peaceful change with the right programmes.

“A mix of prison programming, consisting primarily of religious re-education and vocational training using credible interlocutors who can relate to prisoners’ personal and psychological needs, consistent efforts to facilitate prisoners’ transition into social networks away from extremism and the systematic fostering of long-term commitments towards family, community and the state can change a convicted terrorist’s mindset,” it said.