Nairobi court finds 2 men guilty of aiding al-Shabab militants in 2019 hotel attack

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Two Kenyan men charged with facilitating the 2019 attack on a luxury hotel complex that left 21 people dead were found guilty on Thursday and will be sentenced next month.

Judge Diana Kavedza, while sitting a court in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, ruled that the prosecution had proved that Hussein Mohamed Abdille Ali and Mohamed Abdi Ali sent money and helped acquire fake identification documents for the militants who died during the DusitD2 hotel complex attack.

Al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred six years after 67 people were killed at Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall and four years after 147 students died at Garissa University in the north of the country.

Based in neighboring Somalia, Al-Shabab have vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight it since 2011, and continue to stage attacks in Somalia and Kenya.

Kenyan authorities said all five attackers died during the Dusit attack.

The prosecution presented 45 witnesses during the trial.

On Thursday, the judge ordered a probation report to be prepared within 21 days and set sentencing for June 19.

A third suspect, Mire Abdulahi, who had been charged alongside the two men had earlier pleaded guilty and was sentenced.

Foreign nationals, including an American and a Briton, were among those killed in the 2019 attack.

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