Protesting youths smashed motor
vehicles, looted shops and attacked four churches in Mombasa after gunmen killed Al-Shabaab suspect Sheikh Aboud Rogo on Monday.
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PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA GSU walking
past a van set on
fire in Majengo area in Mombasa
after angry youths went
in protest following the death of
fiery Islamic preacher
Sheikh Aboud Rogo in this picture
taken on August 28, 2012.
The preacher was gunned down by
unknown gunmen along
Mombasa-Malindi highway at
Bamburi. NATION MEDIA GROUP
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The fiery madrassa teacher, named by
the United Nations and the US as Al-Shabaab’s chief agent in Kenya, was shot
near Bamburi on the Mombasa-Malindi highway as he drove his wife to hospital.
His wife sustained gunshot wounds in
the legs. Her father, Mr Abdhallah Ali, who was also in the 14-seater van,
suffered slight injuries but the couple’s eight-year-old daughter was unhurt.
Scores of irate youths in Sheikh
Rogo’s funeral procession looted Jesus Celebration Centre and Neno Evangelism
Centre, vandalised Ziwani SDA and petrol-bombed Pentecostal Assemblies of God
churches all in Buxton area.
Sheikh Rogo was buried at Manyimbo
Muslim Cemetery in Tudor.
The protesting youths burnt tyres
outside Msikiti Musa, Majengo Market and along the Buxton-Nyali road where they
harassed motorists and pedestrians. During the mayhem one person was stoned to
death.
Earlier at Msikiti Musa, where Sheikh
Rogo regularly attended evening prayers, the youths burnt a government van that
had slowed down at a road bump and raided a Salvation Army Church.
The fate of the driver and passengers
could not be established. The mobs barricaded a section of King’orani
road between the Kenya Railway Station and Mewa Hospital junction.
The violence erupted shortly after
Sheikh Rogo’s body was buried.
Sheikh Rogo, who ran a madrassa in
Kilifi, was facing terror-related charges in court. He has been linked to
Somalia’s Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda groups by both Kenyan and US authorities.
Last month, the US accused him,
together with Eritrean intelligence and military officials, of fund raising for
Al-Shabaab. A UN report said he provided “financial, material, logistical or
technical support to Al-Shabaab”.
He was the “main ideological leader”
of the Muslim Youth Centre in Pumwani, Nairobi, the report added.
Sheikh Rogo “used the extremist group
as a pathway for radicalisation and recruitment of principally
Kiswahili-speaking Africans for carrying out violent militant activity in
Somalia,” the UN said.
Kenya had also accused him of
recruiting youths at the Coast to fight for the rebel group in Somalia where
the Kenya Defence Forces have deployed as part of an African Union
stabilisation force. (Read: Cleric ‘was plotting attacks’ in Mombasa)
In the wake of the 2002 terror attack
on the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Kikambala, Sheikh Rogo was charged but
acquitted for lack of evidence.
He died instantly after a vehicle that
was trailing him suddenly pulled next to him near the Pirates Public Beach and
its occupants sprayed his van with bullets.
The preacher’s wife, Haniya Said
Sagal, immediately pointed a finger at the police. A shaken Ms Sagal said
police had been trailing her husband and were behind an attempt to abduct him
in Nairobi two weeks ago where he was to attend court in an illegal weapons
possession charge.
“Why do the police kill my husband in
broad daylight?” she asked.
When police officers arrived at the
scene, Ms Sagal refused their offer to take her to hospital. “I don’t need your
help. You have killed my husband, now leave us alone,” she shouted.
Angry youths blocked the officers from
collecting Sheikh Rogo’s body. Instead, they took it to Manyimbo cemetery for
burial. They stoned a man to death near the cemetery and damaged four parked
vehicles before disappearing into the sprawling Sparki Village.
The Daily
Nation’s photographer Laban Walloga was rescued from a
club-wielding youth who wanted all the pictures he had taken deleted.
The Majengo/King’orani/Sabasaba areas
were no-go zones as armed youths blocked roads and engaged police in running
battles. Public transport on Mombasa Island was grounded with matatu operators
withdrawing their vehicles.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga appealed
to Mombasa residents to exercise restraint as the killing is investigated.
“I appeal to our people not to use
this sad act to inflict more pain and suffering on our country. Let us come
together in calm instead and join hands in order to get to the bottom of the
murder,” said Mr Odinga.
The government, he said, was committed
to bringing the culprits to book.
“It is even more shocking that Sheikh
Rogo was killed while taking his sick wife to hospital,” said Mr Odinga.
Muslim Human Rights Forum asked the
government to set up an inquiry into the killing.
Reports by Mwakera Mwajefa,
Bozo Jenje, Caleb Mutua, Winnie Atieno and Daniel Nyassy
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