Mombasa court acquits 3 women charged with 20 counts of terrorist activities

A Mombasa court has acquitted three women charged with twenty counts of terror related crimes over lack of merit.

Ummulkheir Sadri Abdalla, Khadija Abubakar Abdulkarim and Halima Aden were intercepted in Elwak on March 27, 2015 and put into custody over allegations of trying to cross over to Somalia to join terror group Al-Shabaab.

Among the twenty charges of terror related activities they were charged with include being members of Al-Shabaab, receiving information regarding terror crimes via phone as well as providing avenues for teaching and recruiting new members to terrorist activities.

While delivering his ruling, Judge Evans Makori said the prosecution’s case relied on evidence contained in the accused persons’ phones said to be in the form of videos and photos relating to terror activities but could not prove that they (suspects) were indeed members of a terror group or had any ties to terrorism.

The judge further stated that having contacts of and communicating with people in Somalia was not a guarantee that they were connected to terrorism.

He added that the prosecution should have proven beyond reasonable doubt the owners of the mobile numbers the accused spoke to in Somalia as well as established the communication between them.

The court ruled that the evidence provided by the videos and photos of people being killed and taught how to use firearms from the accused persons phones were seen by many people as well hence it could not establish their validity.

The court also added that the prosecution did not prove whether the videos and photos contained in the accused’s phones were sent to other people.

The fourth accused person in the case, Maryam Said Aboud, passed on after a short illness in May this year and was buried in Malindi.