TERROR suspect Farid Omar Awadh has escaped a police dragnet in Kisauni only hours after he sneaked back into the country from Somalia.
According to detectives who spoke to the Star on condition of anonymity, Awadh is believed to have returned on Friday.
A team of heavily armed Anti-Terror Police Unit and Serious Crime Unit officers stormed his house in the wee hours of yesterday, but he had escaped.
The 20 officers broke into the house, turning it upside down as they ransacked the premises for assorted weapons they claim he owns.
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However, the police later denied any involvement in the operation.
Newly posted Coast regional police commandant Francis Wanjohi and regional CID boss Henry Ondiek said they are unaware of the operation.
Wanjohi said the police cannot be held responsible for the alleged damage of household items and injuries.
“I have sent detectives from the Scene of Crime Unit and we are yet to establish the people behind the raid,” said Wanjohi, who spoke to the Star on the phone.
Awadh’s wife Zahara Bahama said they were held at gunpoint for hours as the officers searched the house.
“I heard a loud explosion then suddenly saw the gun-toting officers entering the house. They claimed that we were hiding firearms and protecting a terror suspect,” said Bahama.
Addressing the media, Bahama said the officers climbed into the ceiling and broke into several rooms in the house before they left at around 3am.
She said her husband’s whereabouts are unknown and he cannot be reached on phone.
The family denied that he had links with terrorism as alleged by the police officers.
A senior National Intelligence Service officer who was involved in the operation told the Star that Awadh was on the police radar over alleged recruitment for and funding of terrorism activities.
He said Awadh hails from Lamu and is part the Jeysh Ayman, a cell of the terror group al Shabaab that operates from Boni Forest.
“We had intelligence information that he is now back and shared it among ATPU officers who conducted the operation, but, unfortunately, they missed the target,” said the NIS officer.
He said Awadh was not in the house when the 20 officers conducted the raid.
The family claimed that he spent the night in the second wife’s house but could not explain where she resides.
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The officers also raided another house adjacent to Bahama’s, belonging to Hussein Machasio.
According to Machasio’s family, police also ransacked the house while holding them hostage at gun point.
Speaking to reporters, Machasio said, “We were subjected to trauma and torture as the officers damaged the doors and household goods. They never cared to listen to us. This is inhumane and unfair profiling of Muslims.”
The ATPU has been accused of engaging in forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of terror suspects.
Police spokesman Charles Owino has defended the National Police Service and instead accused some youths in Somalia of hoodwinking their relatives that they had been kidnapped by officers.