Canadian one of four people taken into custody after deadly attack in Kenya
Posted Jan 18, 2019 9:16 am.
Last Updated Jan 18, 2019 10:13 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NAIROBI, KENYA — A week have appeared in court as prosecutors investigate them for suspected terror offences. A judge has ordered the five suspects held for 30 days while authorities look into the assault on Nairobi’s dusitD2 hotel complex.
Kenyan authorities say 21 people, including one police officer, were killed by the attackers, one of whom blew himself up beside a restaurant. Another four gunmen died. Prosecutors have identified the Canadian national as Guleid Abdihakim. Officials suspect the alleged accomplices, including two taxi drivers and an agent for a mobile phone-based money service, of “aiding and abetting” the attackers who stormed the complex on Tuesday afternoon and were killed by Wednesday morning.
Prosecutors say they are pursuing more suspects in and outside Kenya. The al-Shabab group, which is linked to al-Qaida and based in neighbouring Somalia, claimed responsibility. Officials say the attackers were in constant communication with several phone numbers which are located in Somalia.
Al-Shabab also carried out the 2013 attack at Nairobi’s nearby Westgate Mall that killed 67 people, and an assault on Kenya’s Garissa University in 2015 that claimed 147 lives, mostly students.
READ MORE: 1 freed, 3 others to stand trial over Kenya mall attack
