Kenya court finds 3 guilty for University terror attack

By Magdalene Mukami

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) - A Kenyan court on Wednesday found three suspects guilty over the 2015 Garissa University attack that killed more than 148 people, mostly students.

While reading the ruling, Nairobi Chief Magistrate Francis Andanyi acquitted Sahal Diry Hussein of all charges saying that he could not be linked to the attack but found Mohamed Abdi alias Mohamed Ali Abikar, Hassan Edin and Rashid Charles Mberesero guilty of planning the Garissa University terror attack.

Andanyi said: "I have found that the accused were in active communication with the attackers, I am satisfied and do find that the first, second and the fifth accused persons were members of the al-Shabaab terrorist group whose members carried out the terror attack on the second of April 2015.''

He added that the High Court will sentence the trio on July 3 after hearing from four witnesses including a police officer from a village that lost 11 students during the attack.

On April 2 2015, gunmen stormed the Garissa University in northern Kenya killing more than 148 students, Christians were separated from Muslims before being shot, those who survived the attack told the court that the al-Qaeda affiliated Somali-based militants went around telling the students that the attack was due to Kenyan military presence in Somalia.

Kenya has maintained that it will not pull out its military from Somalia until the country is secure, on Jan. 15 2016 more than 100 Kenyan soldiers were killed by al-Shabaab militants at El Adde base in Somalia, a Kenyan-run military facility under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).