NAIROBI; KENYA: Police are offering a Sh500,000 reward to anyone who will help them arrest two owners of a car that was used to ferry terrorists, weapons and explosives to Westgate shopping mall.
Efforts to trace Kenyan Abdikadir Haret Mohamed alias Mohamed Hussein and Somali national Adan Dheq alias Hussein Abdi Ali alias Abdulahi Dugon Subow have borne no fruits so far.
They are the owners of the Mitsubishi salon car, registration number KAS 575X which was seized outside the mall after the attack.
The car had explosives and weapons at the time of its recovery, almost a week after the attack, head of Anti-Terrorism Unit Boniface Mwaniki said.
According to police, the two men have been living in Eastleigh, Nairobi, and paid Sh340,000 to get the car on September 6, 2013.
Mohamed evaded police arrest on Saturday night at one of Mombasa bus stops in Nairobi as he escorted his wife to board a bus to the coastal town. “We suspect someone tipped him we were with his wife but we hope he will be caught,” said Nicholas Kamwende who is part of the team probing the attack.
Pay cash
Mohamed is from the Marehan clan in Mandera County and is aged below 30.
He is fluent in Kiswahili while Dheq at times wears spectacles. “We will offer more than the Sh500,000 as long as we can get the two men. They are key to our investigations for now,” said Mr Mwaniki.
The original owner of the car was a female staff of United Nations in Nairobi who sold it to a staff of International Center for Research in Agroforestry (Icraf) in Nairobi. The Icraf staff gave it to his brother to help in getting a buyer.
Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo said the brother put up the car for sale in a garage in Buruburu.
Then on September 6, Mohamed and Dheq approached a mechanic at the garage and said they were ready to buy the car. According to Mr Kimaiyo, the mechanic called the owner and informed him there were buyers who were ready to pay cash for the car.
“But when the owner arrived, he insisted they do the transaction in a bank. They drove to Barclays Bank Queensway Branch and transacted the business,” Kimaiyo said.
Source-standardmedia.co.ke
