NAIROBI (Reuters) -A Kenyan court on Thursday found two people guilty of aiding a 2019 attack by al Qaeda-linked militants on a hotel and office complex in the capital that killed 21 people, the presiding judge said.
In January 2019, gunmen shot their way into Nairobi’s Dusit hotel and office complex, killing 21 people in a siege that lasted more than 12 hours.
At the time, the government said it had killed all the attackers, who were Somali and members of the al Shabaab group, which claimed responsibility for the attack. The government did not say how many militants had taken part in the assault, but CCTV footage from the complex showed five attackers.
Authorities arrested Hussein Mohammed Abdile and Mohamed Abdi Ali later that year for providing logistical support to the attackers. A third suspect, Mire Abdullahi, was earlier convicted following a plea bargain. Abdile and Ali pleaded not guilty.
The three men were accused of providing financial and logistical support to the gunmen and charged with facilitation and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism.
Prosecutors said they had helped two of the attackers obtain forged identity cards that allowed them to escape from a refugee camp.
“I find the accused guilty and accordingly I convict them,” Judge Diana Mochache said, adding that they would be sentenced next month.
Kenya has often been attacked by al Shabaab, which killed 67 people at the Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and nearly 150 students at Garissa University in 2015.
Al Shabaab, which has been seeking to overthrow Somalia’s fragile central government for over a decade, says its attacks are in revenge for Kenya sending troops to fight the jihadists in the Horn of Africa nation.
(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Ammu Kannampilly, William Maclean)
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