DCI to pick three ISIS-linked terror suspects from DR Congo
Terror suspect Salim Rashid Mohamed alias Chortara who has been arrested in DRC where he fled to after jumping bail in Kenya. DCI officers are travelling to DRC to pick him together with two other suspects.
Officers from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit will travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to initiate the process of repatriating three wanted terror suspects into the country to face criminal charges.
Salim Rashid Mohamed alias Chortara alias Turki, Murad Suleiman and Mohammud Salim from Malindi are wanted by the Kenyan authorities over links to ISIS.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has said on its Twitter handle that it is liaising with Congolese authorities to facilitate the repatriation of the three fugitives into the country.
"Following the capture of Kenyans fugitive and terror suspect Salim in DRC, the DCI is liaising with Congolese authorities through Interpol on the arrest of the suspect,” said the statement.
The statement further revealed that anti-terror sleuths are seeking to grill Salim in relation to the crimes he committed in the country before fleeing.
According to DCI, Salim fled the country in December 2020 and sneaked into DRC through Uganda. He has been a key member of an Islamist rebel group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
Jumped bail
"The terror suspect has been on our watchlist after he was charged with terror offences in a Mombasa court and jumped bail, prompting the court to issue a warrant for his arrest," said the DCI.
In 2016, Salim left Kenya for Turkey, allegedly to join a Turkish university for undergraduate studies.
However, in the same year, Turkish authorities deported him back to Kenya after he was allegedly arrested trying to cross over to Syria.
The suspect was thereafter released pending production of evidence from Turkish authorities.
"A year later, the suspect escaped our dragnet in an intelligence-led operation by ATPU detectives after explosives were recovered in a house he was occupying in Kwale County," said the investigative agency.
The information from DCI further disclosed that the suspect, who was determined to fulfil his jihadist ideals, was intercepted by detectives at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa on May 12, 2019 as he attempted to flee the country to Sudan.
He was placed behind bars and charged with various terror offences, related to the explosives materials discovered during the raid in Kwale in 2017.
Wanted terror suspect Salim Rashid Mohamed alias Chortara alias Turki.
Fulfil Jihad
He was granted bail and he continued attending court sessions until his disappearance in 2020. During interrogation, the terror suspect told detectives that he had been looking forward to fulfilling Jihad before going to paradise, where 72 virgins waited to surprise him.
"Together with two other wanted suspects from Malindi town identified as Suleiman and Mohammud, the fugitive sneaked to Congo (DRC) on December 3, 2020 and informed his family through a short text message that he had gone to a faraway land to fight Jihad and would never come back home," said the DCI.
Joined ADF
According to the security agency, Salim joined the ADF, an insurgency that begun in 1996 and which is responsible for hundreds of deaths of innocent civilians in DRC and western Uganda.
The terror group is believed to be affiliated to the Islamic State after the latter claimed responsibility for an ADF attack in 2019 under the ‘Central Africa Province’, an administrative division of the Islamic State. Salim is the author of propaganda videos depicting machete killings and arrests of civilians in the regions of eastern Congo.
Until his capture, Salim was last seen in a gory video clip, beheading a man they termed as a traitor.
On January 28, the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) announced the capture of Salim, said to be one of the driving brains of the ADF terrorist movement.
