OMARE: How 1998 bombing jolted government to enact laws jailing terrorists

Every crisis has a turning point to leverage to create better resilience and response mechanisms to handle future similar challenges or other threats.

 The terror attack on the US embassy in Nairobi on August 7, 1998 presented Kenya with an opportunity to elevate terrorism threat to existential levels to better deal with it.

The sheer loss of innocent lives and massive destruction of properties through the bomb blast masterminded by Osama bin Laden, the then Al-Qaeda terror group leader, jolted Kenya to upgrade its counter terrorism strategies.

Despite the 7th August bomb blast being one of Kenya’s first major terrorist attacks, its handling of the incident and the resultant investigations in collaboration with international partners was impressive.

From the onset, the Kenyan government and its American counterpart vowed that the perpetrators of the terror attack would face the full force of the law to not only serve justice to victims and survivors but also act as a deterrent.

And true to their word, Kenya’s security agencies worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to arrest and extradite over 20 Al-Qaeda terrorists to face terrorism charges relating to the Nairobi bombing.

Among the terrorists paying dearly for the heinous act through life sentences in American jails are Mohammed Sadeek Odeh, Mohammed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim and Wadih el-Hage.

Others like Osama Bin Laden and his ally Muhammad Atef were killed, leaving Al-Qaeda a shell of its former self.

Osama’s then East African sidekick Fazul Abdullah Mohammed suffered the same fate in Somalia in 2011 following a collaboration between Kenyan and Somalia security agencies.

Since 1998, Kenya has invested heavily in both hard and soft power to deal with the terrorism threat.

 As a regional security superpower and an anchor state in the global war against terrorism, Kenya is obligated to be on top of the game in domestic counterterrorism and international collaboration.

 For instance, Kenya’s military intervention in war-torn Somalia in 2011 to deal with Al-Shabaab head-on continues to receive global accolades, as most states were cagey to tackle the militants then.

For its efforts, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) would be incorporated into subsequent peace missions, including the current African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), where it is a dependable partner.

By taking the war to the enemy, Kenya managed to degrade Al-Shabaab, which pledges allegiance to Al-Qaeda for relevance.

 Over the years, the government has done more than fighting and neutralising terrorists. There have been concerted efforts to reform and empower the criminal justice system to prosecute those caught in the act of terrorist activities.

Kenya now boasts of a robust criminal justice system that has embraced good practices to respond to terrorism-related crimes, including aspects of international cooperation to fight terror.

The work of the criminal justice actors is made easy by progressive pieces of legislation like the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2012, which spells out harsh penalties for the convicted terrorists.

Although security agencies, through intelligence-led operations, have managed to disrupt numerous terrorist attacks, the few attacks witnessed have been investigated, and the perpetrators have been held to account through legal means.

The key criminal justice actorsare clearly working together in the whole-of-government approach to secure convictions of terrorists and dismiss appeals challenging their sentences.

As if to take a cue from what befell terrorists behind the 1998 bombing, most terrorists responsible for terror attacks in the country have been jailed.

 For instance, in 2020, a Nairobi court found Mohammed Ahmed Abdi and Hussein Hassan Mustafa guilty of helping Al-Shabaab militants to carry out a terror attack at the Westgate Shopping Mall in 2013.

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

A similar fate befell two Kenyans and a Tanzanian who were found guilty of abetting Al-Shabab terrorists who carried out the Garissa University attack in 2015.

The Kenyans - Mohamed Ali Abikar and Hassan Aden Hassan were handed a 41-year jail term, while the Tanzanian - Rashid Charles Mberesero received a life sentence for being members of Al-Shabaab terrorist group and being involved in a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.

It was the same case for the facilitators of the Dusit D2 terror attack in 2019, as the court recently jailed them for terrorism-related charges.

In the landmark conviction at the Kahawa Anti-Terror Court, Mohamed Abdi Ali – a madrassa teacher and Hussein Mohamed Abdille Ali were imprisoned for 30 years for facilitating a terrorist attack and conspiracy to commit an offence contract to POTA Act.

The government seems determined to push for maximum sentences for the terror convicts to reflect the severity of their crimes and act as deterrence against future acts of terrorism.

The precedent-setting terrorism-related cases are not by accident but a product of rejuvenated criminal justice system actors working in synergy to protect national security interests.

The courts are increasingly considering circumstantial evidence and progressively interpreting POTA to jail more terrorists.

 On the other hand, security agencies continues to receive accolades for high rate of converting intelligence gathered into evidential material required to convict terrorists.

The government is also using other legal actions such as watch-listing, deportations, declaration of prohibited immigrants, revocation of remission and listing of specified entities to counter terrorism.

There is a need for specially-trained judges and magistrates to effectively handle terrorism-related cases on a priority basis as part of judiciary contribution to the war on terrorism.

The war against terrorism is too important to be left to security agencies alone. It requires all stakeholders to collaborate and work on joint strategies to deal with the ever-evolving terrorism threat in order to make Kenya safe.

 Omare is a security expert based in Nairobi