The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) will liaise with Congolese authorities to interrogate terror suspect Rashid Mohammed Salim who was arrested in Congo.
In an update issued on Sunday, January 30, Anti Terror sleuths are seeking to grill the suspect in relation to the crimes he committed in the country before taking flight.
According to DCI, Rashid fled the country in December 2020 through Uganda and joined an Islamist rebel group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
"Following the capture of Kenyan fugitive and terror suspect Rashid Mohammed Salim, in Congo (DRC), the Directorate of Criminal Investigations is liaising with Congolese authorities through INTERPOL, on the arrest of the suspect. Anti Terror sleuths are seeking to grill the suspect in relation to the crimes he committed in the country before taking flight.
"Salim fled the country in December 2020, and sneaked into Congo (DRC) through Uganda,where he has been a key member of an Islamist rebel group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). The terror suspect has been on our watchlist after he was charged with terror offences in a Mombasa court and jumped bail, prompting the court to issue a warrant for his arrest," DCI said.
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DCI also gave a detailed past of the terror suspect and his actvioties before he fled the country after being granted bail.
"In 2016, Salim left Kenya for Turkey allegedly to join a Turkish university for undergraduate studies. However, in the same year, Turkish authorities deported him back to the country after he was arrested trying to cross over to Syria. The suspect was released pending production of evidence from Turkish authorities. A year later, the suspect escaped our dragnet in an intelligence led operation by ATPU detectives, after explosives were recovered in a house he was occupying in Kwale county.
"The suspect who was determined to fulfill his jihadist ideals, was intercepted by detectives at the Moi International airport in Mombasa, on May, 12, 2019 as he attempted to flee the country to Sudan. He was placed behind bars and charged with various terror offenses, related to the explosives materials discovered during the raid in Kwale, in 2017. The court granted him bail and he continued attending court sessions until his disappearance in 2020. During interrogation, the terror suspect told detectives that he had been looking forward to fulfilling Jihad before going to paradise, where 72 virgins waited to surprise him," part of the statement by DCI reads.
The statement adds, "Together with two other wanted suspects from Malindi town identified as Murad Suleiman and Mohammud Salim, the fugitive sneaked to Congo (DRC) on December, 3, 2020 and informed his family through a short text message that he had gone to a far away land to fight Jihad and would never come back home.The suspect joined the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an insurgency that began in 1996 and which is responsible for hundreds of deaths of innocent civilians in Congo (DRC) and western Uganda. The terror group is believed to be affiliated to the Islamic State after the latter claimed responsibility for an ADF attack in 2019 under the ‘Central Africa Province’, an administrative division of the Islamic State.
"Salim is the author of propaganda videos depicting machete killings and arrests of civilians in the regions of eastern Congo. He has previously been captured in a gory videoclip, beheading a man. The Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) announced on January 28, the capture of Salim Muhammad, as one of the driving brains of the terrorist movement Alliance of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)."
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