PHOTO/FILE Sheikh Rogo (left) and some of the weapons police say they recovered following a raid at his home in Kikambala.
By ANTHONY KITIMO akitimo@ke.nationmedia.com and PHILIP MUYANGA pmuyanga@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Sunday, January 29 2012 at 12:06
Posted Sunday, January 29 2012 at 12:06
Controversial preacher Aboud Rogo was arrested on Sunday following a raid at his home in Kikambala, Kilifi County, during which police say they recovered a cache of arms.
The firearms displayed by the police included 102 explosives, 82 rounds of ammunition, an AK-47 rifle loaded with 27 bullets, two hand grenades, a Ceska pistol loaded with 10 bullets, and a loaded revolver.
However, family members disputed the police account and claimed the weapons on display were planted by the security agents.
The squad from the Kenya Police Anti-Terrorism Unit raided Sheikh Rogo’s home shortly after 6am on Sunday.
Sheikh Rogo was later driven to Mombasa provincial police headquarters before being locked up at an undisclosed police station in town.
Coast Provincial Police boss Aggrey Adoli told journalists that officers have been following several crucial links which took them to the preacher.
He said the trail started at the end of last year with a gun battle between police officers and suspected Al-Shabaab infiltrators at Boni Forest in Kiunga, Lamu, on the Kenya-Somalia border.
“A special police force has been trailing those who escaped after the Boni Forest incident in Lamu East on December 31 during which three terrorists were killed and six AK-47 rifles and 358 rounds of ammunition recovered,” said the police boss.
He said the trail led to premises at Majengo in Kilifi where Sheikh Rogo runs a madrassa (Islamic school).
After the arrest, the suspect was transferred from Kijipwa police station to Coast Provincial Criminal Investigation Department headquarters.
“We have the suspect with us and we shall interrogate him to get more details about how he operates,” said Mr Adoli.
But Sheikh Rogo’s family angrily discounted the police claims linking him to terrorist activities.
His wife, Hania Said Saggar, alleged that the police had harassed them while conducting the raid and that the firearms were planted in the home.
She said police had ordered all the children in the madrassa to lie down before handcuffing her husband.
“The children who were in madrassa witnessed how it happened and how the police placed the hand grenades in the house,” said Ms Saggar.
She claimed the raid followed the failure by the police to get any evidence to support an ongoing case in which Sheikh Rogo is charged with involvement in terrorist activities.
Mr Adoli said the suspect will be taken to court on Monday.
If he is charged in court, this would be the third such case for him. He is already facing a charge of being a member of Al-Shabaab. He is out on bond in the case.
And in 2005, Sheikh Rogo and two other people were acquitted by the High Court following charges connected with the Kikambala Paradise Hotel bombing.
They faced 15 counts of murder arising from the November 28, 2002 bombing.
The United Nations Security Council report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea of July last year found that an alleged Al-Shabaab recruitment centre in Nairobi, the Muslim Youth Centre, was strongly influenced by Sheikh Rogo’s preaching.
According to the report, Sheikh Rogo’s association with the centre was established by one of its leaders Ahmed Iman Ali, who was the preacher’s student at a religious school in Mombasa.
Ahmed Iman was revealed to be one of Al-Shabaab’s key leaders in Kenya, but has since moved to Somalia where he heads a unit of the militia composed of Kenyans and dedicated to spreading terror in Kenya and other East African countries.
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