Two sentenced in Kenya over Westgate Mall attack and links to Al-Shabaab

NAIROBI, Kenya - Two men were slapped with hefty sentences by a court in Nairobi after the prosecution team proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they worked closely with Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militants, who have been wreaking havoc across East Africa for the last 14 years.

A judge in Nairobi jailed the two for 18 and 33 years respectively, just over a month after they were convicted of planning and executing the 2013 Westgate Mall attack, one of the deadly raids by the militants on Kenyan soil. They had been waiting for their sentences which can, however, be appealed at the Appeals Court.

The 2013 attack left at least 67 people dead in the assault by Al-Shabaab on the Westgate shopping complex in the capital, Nairobi. The state said the four militants who carried out the attack were found dead in the shopping center's rubble.

Despite the attack taking place within the capital Nairobi, security forces took close to four days to contain the situation. President Uhuru Kenyatta was forced to overhaul the security team months later over what pundits related to inefficiency.

A third man who was found not guilty on all counts of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act has been missing since the day after the verdict was announced three weeks ago. Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate, is based in neighboring Somalia, and has carried out a series of attacks in Kenya and the country has troops in Somalia to help fight the militants.

Mohammed Ahmed Abdi, who received a 33-year prison sentence, and Hussein Hassan Mustafa, who was jailed for 18 years, were charged with planning and committing acts of terror, as well as supporting and helping a terrorist group.

The third suspect, Liban Abdullahi, was found not guilty. The Somali refugee was also acquitted of the charge of being in Kenya illegally and possessing identification documents by false presences.

However, witnesses said that the day after he was found not guilty, gunmen stopped his taxi and abducted him. He has not been seen since, but his lawyers insist that he may have been deported to Somalia after it was established that he was staying in the country illegally.

Al-Shabab said it carried out the attack in response to Kenyan military operations in Somalia. Initially, the authorities said there had been 10 attackers, but then revised the figure down to four. They said all of them had been killed, but forensic tests on their remains have never been released, BBC reported.

The terror group continues to carry small to large scale sporadic attacks against members of security forces, civilians, and government officials both in Somalia and Kenya. However, a joint military operation is underway in the Horn of Africa nation and it's anticipated that the militants will be crushed.

GAROWE ONLINE