Wanted terror suspect who jumped bail arrested in DR Congo

A wanted terror suspect who had a Sh10 million bounty on his head has been arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rashid Salim Mohamed was in the company of two people.

A brief video posted on social media shows him pleading that he was on his way to South Africa for greener pastures.

"We were in a car. We were going to SA through DRC. From Kenya, we passed through Uganda," he says.

Mr Mohamed was detained by the Armed Forces of the DR Congo (FARDC) who suspected he was part of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

Information from the DRC indicated that the 28-year-old was arrested in Beni, a city in the north eastern DRC, bordering west of the Virunga National Park and the Rwenzori Mountains.

On November 9, 2021, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations offered a reward of Sh10 million to anyone who would volunteer information that could lead to the arrest of five terror suspects, including Mr Mohamed. He left Kenya in 2019 after jumping bail in a terror case.

According to Kenyan authorities, Mr Salim is an al Shabaab member who was on his way to joining Islamic States of Iraq and Syria (Isis) when he was intercepted by Anti-Terror Police Unit officers at Moi International Airport in Mombasa in 2017.

The suspect was to travel to Syria by Ethiopian Airline via Sudan. When he first appeared in court in May 2017, he denied being a member of the group and requested to be release on bond.

Security agencies in Kenya have described Mr Salim as armed and dangerous. He was last seen in an undated video showing a person suspected to be him beheading an alleged ISIS traitor.

In the almost five-minute video, they are seen shouting in Kiswahili and Arabic that traitors must be killed. They are all wearing military fatigues and armed with machetes and rifles.

According to court records, Mohamed went to Qubaa Nursery in Mvita and Qubaa Primary School, before being transferred to Abu Hureira Academy, where he sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam in 2010 and passed. He joined a private secondary school in Mombasa in 2011 and sat his KCSE exam four years later, emerging one of the top candidates.

Mohamed was selected to join the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology but opted for the Technical University of Mombasa to study computer engineering. He dropped out after the first year.

He later enrolled for computer engineering at Istanbul Kultur University, Turkey, but was deported to Kenya on suspicion of being a member of Isis after being found at the border headed for Syria.

He was charged with the offence at Shanzu Law Courts in 2017 but was acquitted for lack of evidence. In 2019, he was arrested at the Moi International Airport over terror links and charged in court. He and others, who were not before court, were accused of being members of al Shabaab

He was also charged with being in possession of items used to make improvised explosive devices. He denied the offences, which the State alleges he committed on March 8 at Ngomeni in Kwale County.

The court granted him a Sh1.5 million bond with one surety of a similar amount, which he secured. He attended court for a while then disappeared in October 2020.

His family reported his disappearance to the police under OB number 5/12/2020. An arrest warrant was issued against him. At the time, at least eight witnesses had given evidence in the case.

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