It is lengthy terms in jail for Garissa University terror offenders as court seals their fate

By Lenox Sengre.

Three Garissa University terror offenders were on Wednesday, July 3 sentenced to lengthy terms in jail.

Two of the offenders, Mohamed Ali Abdikadir and Hassan Aden Hassan, will serve 41 years in jail each, whereas the third accused, Rashid Charles Mberesero, who is a Tanzanian national, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Mberesero told the court in Milimani that he was going to join terror group, Al-Shabaab, shortly after the devastating Garissa University attack, which occurred on April 2, 2015.

Mberesero and his accomplices were, on June 19, found guilty of facilitating the macabre attack that left 148 people -- a majority of them students -- dead.

One of the suspects, Sahal Diriy alias Sahali Diriye Hussein, was on June 19 acquitted, with the sentencing of the other three set for July 3.

Principal Magistrate Francis Andayi said the prosecution, which relied on circumstantial evidence, had presented a strong case against the offenders.

“The court finds that they knew the plot and were part of the attackers as they were arrested while travelling from Garissa two days after the attack,” said Magistrate Andayi.

The court rejected defenses’ argument that they could not have been co-conspirators yet they do not know each other.

“It is not necessary for them to know each other as they could have met through a third party,” he added.

With regard to Mberesero, the Tanzanian, he was acquitted the charge of being unlawfully present in Kenya, but the court wondered why, no official from Garissa University testified in court to confirm whether he was a student.

This is after it emerged during trial that on the day of the attack he remained in the hostel and could not satisfactorily explain his presence there.

“I find it intriguing that no official from the university came to testify in this matter,” he said.