Escape from Kamiti: How terror suspects fooled guards in midnight prison break drama

Three terrorism convicts who tried to escape Kamiti Maximum Prison are one step away from getting another round of cooling their heels behind bars for a 2021 daring plot.

Kahawa Law Court Magistrate Gideon Kiage yesterday convicted Musharaf Abdala, Mohamed Ali Abikar, and Joseph Juma Odhiambo for the commission of a terrorist act by escaping lawful custody.

He, however, acquitted Abdul Majid Yasin after finding that there was no evidence to link him to the escape.

While agreeing with State’s prosecutor James Machira, Kiage said that Abdala, Ali, and Juma’s escape had compromised national security and caused panic among the public.

He affirmed Machira’s argument that the escape from the condemned Block "A" cell No. 6, where they were serving sentences for terrorism related offences, was terrorism itself.

“The upshot of the foregoing therefore is that taken together the facts and circumstances surrounding the escaping from lawful custody by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd accused persons, including their conduct before and after the escape as well as the effect of the escape upon the public at large goes to establish the ingredients i.e. the action, intention and consequence necessary to constitute a terrorist act,” said Kiage.

Movie enthusiasts would perhaps remember Escape from Alcatraz, a 1979 movie based on the true story of the breakout attempt by the Anglin brothers, John and Clarence, and Frank Morris to escape the then inescapable prison.

The film, directed by Don Siegel and featuring Clint Eastwood, indicates that the trio used stolen spoons to chip the wall around the air vents in their cells and used accordions they played during music classes to hide their progress.

The fourth prisoner, Allen West, did not make it as he was late to leave his cell at the agreed time.

Now, let us take you closer to home, that is Kamiti Maximum Prison.

This is the most guarded, if not the protected, prison in the country.

Abdalla alias Shuku, alias Shaliff, alias Alex Shikanda, or Rashid Suantan, Ali, and Odhiambo had just, like in the movie, escaped Kamiti Prison.

Those who were meant to guard them on the night of escape denied being involved or sleeping on the job.

Edwin Muhia, a prison inspector, denied seeing anything. He told the court that he never saw anything unusual on the night they escaped. He said that all the 1979 prisoners were locked inside when he checked in and out. At the same time, he argued that the CCTV footage produced in court was unclear, and the evidence was contradictory. He asserted that he did not know how they moved from Kamiti.

 Prison’s Constable Joseph Nakwai, who was manning the compound outside the block, also said he too never saw anything. he alleged that the area he was tasked was dark and had not been issued with a torch.

 Nakwai also said that if there is an escape, a certain alarm is raised signalling a total lockdown. However, on the night of November 14 and 15, he said, it was all quiet until he handed over.

He said that an escapee singled out those who helped them escape, but they were not charged.

The other person in court, as an accused person, is Inspector Musyoka. He, too, denied any wrongdoing. According to his testimony, he took over from Njuguna, and everything was well until the escape was discovered. He testified that he went to the CCTV room, and it emerged that the cameras were not properly focusing on the block.

He distanced himself from any blunder that may have occurred, saying that even though he was in charge of the early shift, everyone should carry his burden. The mistake, he insisted, was not his.

Another constable, Robert Soi, told the court that all the doors were locked properly, adding that not even a cat can go through them. He asserted that he had never seen anything abnormal and added that he did not neglect his duty.
Ronald Muendo also denied that he had anything to do with the escape. He said that he handed over to the next team when everything was okay. He said there was a bias, as some of the officers who were with them on the night had not been charged.

The convicts’ escape is chronicled in testimonies by different testimonies by witnesses before the Kahawa Law Courts.

Chief Inspector Meshack Kagera was among those told the State’s side of the story. He told the court that between 11 and 12.30 pm, he was informed by the Director of Investigations that terror suspects had escaped Kamiti.

Asked by Machira what happened, Kagera narrated that when he got to Kamiti, he called Gerald Mutembei, who was in charge, who then explained what transpired.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations officer said that Mutembei told him that a security officer by the name Lekulal had told him that other officers who had gone to check on the generator discovered a rope that was hanging from the inside to the outside of the main wall.

The rope, according to him, was adjacent to condemned block A, and upon checking, they discovered that the trio who were in cell six were allegedly missing.

How the trio managed to escape, according to Kagera, they folded their mattresses to resemble people sleeping on the ground, then dug a hole out, concealed with a mattress, and waited for the breakout time.

He told the court that following a search, they found two nails, one of which was sharpened inside the cells, and there was a chisel at the place where convicts condemned to die were hanged.

He said that at ‘kinyonga’ they managed to access the hole that had been dug.

Just like in Alcatraz, one prisoner did not escape from Kamiti. Abdimajid Yassin was left in cell six.

The investigator said that upon interrogating him, he told them that he did not know what transpired; he thought that there was a prisoner transfer, as when he woke up, he was all alone.

Yassin, alias Ali Hussein, alias Browny, pleaded guilty on September 20, 2012, and was sentenced to 59 years. He was arrested alongside Alex Shikanda and Musharaf Abdalla following a swoop that led to the discovery of a cache of weapons that was Kenya’s deadliest plot.

Shikanda and Abdalla were sentenced to 22 years in prison by the magistrate’s court. They were then acquitted on appeal by the High Court, but the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed Justice Grace Nzioka’s verdict.

On the night of September 14, 2012, police arrested two men in Eastleigh, Nairobi County, and recovered some explosives, guns, and ammunition.

The explosives, weighing approximately 18 kilograms, could kill more than 500 people, and they also recovered 12 hand grenades, 16 magazines, and 421 rounds of ammunition.

The present Deputy Inspector General Kenya Police, Eliud Lagat, was the star witness in the case. At the time, he was a superintendent. The officer told the court that he disarmed the explosives. According to him, more than 500 people could have been killed if the plot had succeeded.

By his estimation, then, this could have been the deadliest attack in Kenya. The 1998 bomb blast cost at least 212 lives, while in the 2013 Westgate and Garissa University attacks, 67 and 142 people lost their lives, respectively.

In his testimony, he said that he saw two explosives in two bags, and he cut the wires connected to two Nokia phones. Another bag, he said, had four AK47 rifles and ammunition. There were two other bags with different types of explosives hooked to a grenade.

From his examination, he said, four IEDs were suicide explosive vests. At the time, the prosecution was being represented by senior prosecutor Vincent Monda.

According to Lagat, the jackets had three slabs on each with a mixture of explosives, namely TNT, RDX, and PETN.

He said the three are components of high explosives. The witness further testified that RDX is a primary explosive and that TNT and PETN can travel at the speed of 8.5 meters per second.

He said that each slab was glued with several ball bearings, which enhanced fragmentation effects during an explosion since it could fly in all directions.

Lagat testified that each vest had more than 2,300 ball bearings.

He said the vest maker did not want to leave any chance because one vest was enough to cause maximum damage.

The other two IEDs, the court heard, were hooked to a grenade that had a slab of ball bearings glued to it. The officer said it looked like a pineapple. Of the 12 grenades, he explained, six were F1 Russian Grenades, which look like pineapples, and the other six were Chinese 82-2 grenades, which were smooth.

According to him, the explosives could be controlled remotely or could have been used by a suicide bomber.

He stated that the rocker switches on the explosives were to be used by the suicide bomber, and in the event they failed, then the Nokia phones could be used to trigger them.

“If a target was a crowd, we were looking into deaths of more than 500,” Lagat testified.

In the breakout case, Yassin informed the investigators that he tried to ask the security officers what was happening, but did not get an answer.

According to Kagera, the transfer of Yassin to cell six was meant to conceal the escape as he would have allegedly answered the roll call.

“The transfer was to make sure that when a call up is done in the morning, he would respond to the officer who first asks "Mko", and inmates would respond "tuko". When a call up was made, Maid would just respond "tuko". The officers who took over in the morning were Sylvester Mukisyo, who took over from Edwin Muhia.

According to the officer, the trio was arrested while on transit along Kitui. He said he did not know where they were headed.