It’s 25 years for convicted terrorists

Abdimajit Hassan Adan (right) and Mohamed Osman Nane were sentenced to serve 19 years imprisonment for being in possession of  IEDs while Lydia Nyawira Mburu was sentenced to serve three years for terrorists to acquire national identification cards.

Photo credit: Richard Munguti| NMG

What you need to know:

  • Abdulmajit Hassan Adan and Mohamed Nane hatched a plot to bomb the Milimani law courts and other government installations in 2018 when they were arrested.
  • A registration officer Lydia Nyawira Mburu was jailed for three years for issuing the terrorists with national identification cards. 

Two men arrested with bombs, Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), and an assortment of firearms and ammunition in Merti, Isiolo six years ago have been handed 25 years each in prison.

Abdulmajit Hassan Adan and Mohamed Nane hatched a plot to bomb the Milimani Law Courts and other government installations in 2018 when they were arrested.

One terrorist Osman Abdi Huga was killed by security apparatus when he attempted to escape.

Trial Magistrate Zainab Abdul however reduced the term by six years which they have spent in prison pending trial.

A registration officer Lydia Nyawira Mburu was jailed for three years for issuing the terrorists with national identification cards. 

The terror convicts Abdimajit Hassan Adan and Mohamed Osman Nane were found with seven bombs, 36 hand grenades, and an AK47 intended to be used in a terror attack on February 15, 2018. 

“The IEDs would have caused mass deaths and huge property damage,” ruled Zainab.

They were convicted for possession of weapons for terrorist purposes contrary to section 12 (a) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) of 2012. 

They were acquitted of charges of conspiring to carry out a terror attack.

But the suspects were found guilty of being members of a terrorist group (the Al Shabaab) terror outfit. 

The court was told that they were colluding with others to bomb Milimani Law Courts before they were intercepted by the police. They were found with AK47 riffles and more than one thousand rounds of ammunition (bullets).

In the charge, the two were charged alongside four others with embedding explosives in a motor vehicle – registration number – KBM 200D.

They were accused of making the vehicle of a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED).

They were charged alongside taxi driver Anthony Kitila Makau alias Rasta, John Maina Kiarii who died in 2021, Lydia Nyawira Mburu, and Francis Macharia Karishu. 

Makau and Karishu were acquitted of all the charges but Ms Mburu who aided the two convicts’ accomplices to forge a national identity card was found guilty of the offence forgery of an official document. 

She made a national ID for Jirma Huka who was killed in a shootout with police where Hassan and Nane were arrested after they surrendered. 

The suspects were facing a total of 11 charges but most of the charges were dismissed. Ms Mburu, Karishu and Kiarii were facing charges of giving support to a terrorist group in contravention of section 9 (1) of the POTA but they were also acquitted of the same.

Makau was facing two counts of aiding and abetting commission of a terrorist attack where the prosecution accused him of assisting Hassan to purchase two motor vehicles in Nairobi.