Kenya Sentences 3 For Role In Garissa University Attack
A court in Nairobi has sentenced one man to life in prison and two others to 41 years for abetting the second deadliest attack in the country’s history. The 2015 attack at Garissa University left at least 148 dead.
A court in Nairobi has sentenced one man to life in prison and two others to 41 years for abetting the second deadliest attack in the country’s history. The 2015 attack at Garissa University left at least 148 dead.
But relatives of the victims, such as Duncan Kandie, whose sister was killed in the attack, said the men were no different than the gunmen: “They killed her and they killed many others. They are terrorists, and terrorists have no place in society. Let them rot in jail.”
Another relative whose brother was killed in the attack said they should have been hanged. Kenya does have the death penalty, though it has not executed anyone since 1987.
Mohamed Mohamud, a former teacher at a Koranic school in Garissa, and suspected of being behind the university attack, was killed by US forces in Somalia in 2016.
Al-Shabaab regularly launches attacks in neighboring Kenya in retaliation for Nairobi’s involvement in an African Union operation that drove the group out of the Somali capital Mogadishu in 2011.
Though al-Shabaab only controls small pockets of countryside in Somalia, it remains committed to overthrowing the internationally backed government in Mogadishu.
The group was responsible for the 2013 Westgate Shopping Mall attack in Nairobi, which killed 67 people, and a January attack on a luxury hotel in Nairobi that killed 21.
The deadliest attacks to ever take place on Kenyan soil were carried out by al-Qaeda on August 7, 1998. In all, 224 people were killed in nearly simultaneous truck-bomb attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.