Police re-arrested a Mombasa-based terror suspect who had been arrested in 2017 for being a member of a terror group and for being in possession of articles connected with the commission of a terrorist group.
Ramadhan Mohammed Hassan was re-arrested by detectives from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) Mombasa on March 27, 2025.
Detectives revealed that he was also found in possession of articles connected with the commission of a terrorist group contrary to section 30 of the Prevention of terrorism Act 2012.
The suspect who was arrested in the Kichangii area of Nyali, Mombasa County, last Thursday and was presented in court on April 1.
The detectives requested the court to allow them to continue holding the suspect for 14 days as investigations go on.
They told the court that the mobile phone the suspect had was sent to the ATPU headquarters in Nairobi for forensic analysis in the cyber forensic laboratory.
“The Respondent’s phone, OPPO A16 fitted with a Safaricom and Airtel Sim Cards has been escorted for forensic analysis in the Cyber Forensic Laboratory at ATPU headquarters in Nairobi,” detectives said at the Mombasa law courts.
The investigating authorities will be ‘cracking’ the suspect’s phone to obtain details and call data records, as he is believed to be in constant communication with extremists in Tanzania and Somalia.
“Our team, together with other stakeholders, needs time to liaise with the Tanzanian Embassy to arrest Al Farooq and other associates believed to be in hideouts in Tanzania. Ramadhan is suspected to be in constant communication with extremists in Tanzania and Somalia,” an affidavit sworn by the detectives stated.
Further, they requested that the suspect, who is a flight risk, should not be freed as he is not a first-time offender.
Ramadhan was previously arrested in 2017 and was convicted to two years under probation over the same offences.
The move to re-arrest Ramadhan came as multi-agencies upped their anti-terror operations ahead of the tenth anniversary of the Garissa University terror attack.
Police said they had increased operations to thwart any planned attack similar to the April 2, 2015 attack at the college, which left 148 people dead.
In the early hours, heavily armed attackers stormed Garissa University College and shot dead two security guards before opening fire at students.
The gunmen raided the campus, attacking students in their classrooms while they were preparing for exams.
Witnesses said Christians were singled out by the militants and shot.
More than 500 students managed to escape, some through a fence. Some locked themselves in rooms and cupboards.
At least 79 were injured in the attack.
Wearing suicide vests, the four gunmen were eventually surrounded in a dormitory where the vests detonated and they died.
Out of the 148 people who were killed in the Garissa massacre, 142 were students.
By attacking young, future professionals, the massacre aimed to disrupt the country’s socio-economic growth and stability, as well as divide a multi-faith country, analysts say.
Several suspects were later arrested in connection with the attack.
Three of them were later found guilty of the attack.
Rashid Charles Mberesero, who was given a life sentence, is a Tanzanian, while the other two men, Mohamed Ali Abikar and Hassan Edin Hassan, are Kenyans.
Mberesero was given the longest term because he was arrested at the scene of the massacre and could not explain his presence, the court heard.
The four gunmen were killed at the scene and the man who plotted the attack Mohamed Kuno, was killed in a raid in Somalia in 2016.
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