A former Mandera County driver accused of abducting two Cuban doctors and commissioning a terrorist act that left one police officer dead in 2019, has been found guilty of the offence.
Appearing before Milimani Principal Magistrate Martha Nanzushi, Issack Ibrein Robow was yesterday convicted of three counts of commissioning a terrorist act, kidnapping hostage and aiding and abetting a terrorist act.
He was however, acquitted on the fifth count of unlawfully being in the country.
While convicting him, the magistrate ruled that although the prosecution had alleged that Robow was not a Kenyan national, it failed to prove that he is a Somali.
Relying on circumstantial evidence, the magistrate noted that the accused failed to act during the incident.
“The circumstances in this case were that the two doctors were to be kidnapped, the officers who were armed were to be gotten rid of, luckily one managed to escape but the accused was to be left unharmed,” said the magistrate.
The court added that the driver was not a target in the kidnap since the abductors did not force him to stop. He stopped willingly.
In normal circumstances, the kidnappers target the driver first but in the said incidence, they did not.
She said that from the analysis, it was clear the gunmen targeted the officer seated in the front passenger seat.
“It only suggests that they were well aware of the target’s position, otherwise the most random attack would have targeted the driver to immobilize the car before proceeding to get to the target,” she said.
He will be sentenced on March 2, 2022.
