NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 4 – Kenyan police have arrested five men in connection with the university massacre of 148 people by Somalia’s Shebab Islamists, the interior ministry said Saturday, including suspected masterminds of the attack.
“Five people have been arrested, they are in custody and under interrogation,” interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said, noting that the four gunmen in the university were killed on Thursday at the end of the day-long siege.
“Three were the coordinators who were arrested while trying to flee to Somalia, two were arrested within the precincts of Garissa University.”
The day-long siege of Garissa University was Kenya’s deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the bloodiest ever by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants.
The name of the three suspected organisers were not given, but Njoka said the two arrested on campus included a security guard at the university, and a Tanzanian found hiding.
The Tanzanian was reportedly arrested on the campus on Friday, found hiding as people carried out the grim work of clearing the piles of bodies that the gunmen had killed.
“One is a Tanzanian called Rashid Charles Mberesero, he was hiding in the ceiling of the university and had grenades,” Njoka said.
“The second is a guard at the facility who actually facilitated the attackers, he was in possession of jihadist materials. His name is Osman Ali Dagane, a Kenyan of Somali origin.”
United States embassy vehicles were seen entering the campus – in past attacks including the Westgate massacre, FBI investigators helped Kenyan police with forensic examinations.
“Forensics and investigations are still going on,” he said of the Thursday attack that left 142 students, six security forces and four terrorists dead.
Source-capitalfm.co.ke
