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Woman arraigned in court over links to Kenya police station attack

Xinhua, September 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

Kenyan prosecutors on Thursday arraigned the widow of the slain Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo in court, charged with links to an attack on a police station.

Haniya Said Saggar was arrested on Wednesday as part of investigations into the attack on Sunday by three women on a police station in the port city of Mombasa. The trio was killed by police at the scene while two officers were injured.

The Director of Public Prosecution said Saggar was directly connected in the Sunday attack.

Police say they have intercepted communication between Saggar and one of the slain women attackers, Ramla (Tasnim) Abdirahman Hussein, who was also the mastermind of the attack.

Police say the two were in communication prior to the attack and there was financial transaction between them.

"We are investigating whether she was receiving funds to support terrorism activities in the country," an unnamed senior investigation officer told Xinhua in Mombasa.

State prosecutor Eugene Wangila said Saggar was allegedly involved in a wide terrorism network, adding that they were trying to complete the investigation within two weeks before she can stand trial.

Mombasa Resident Magistrate Emmanuel Mutunga directed that the accused be remanded in police custody until Friday.

Saggar's husband Rogo was gunned down in the coastal region in 2012 when he was facing charges of weapons possession and being a recruiter for the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab.

Saggar's arrest brings to four the number of women detained over the weekend attack.

The court on Wednesday directed three Somali women refugees suspected of habouring the three assailants in Mombasa to undergo health and psychiatric examinations. Defence lawyers, Ababukar Yussuf and Chacha Mwita, have however dismissed the application, terming it as baseless and infringement of their clients' fundamental rights.

No group has claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on Al-Shabaab, which has staged several bloody attacks in Kenya in recent years. Endit