Kenyan court sentences men for aiding al-Shabab militants in 2019 hotel attack

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – A court in Kenya on Thursday sentenced two men to 30 years in prison for facilitating the 2019 attack on a Nairobi luxury hotel complex that left 21 people dead.

The court heard that Hussein Mohamed Abdille Ali and Mohamed Abdi Ali, both Kenyans, sent money and helped acquire fake identification documents for the militants, who died during the attack on the DusitD2 complex.

Al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab, based in neighboring Somalia, claimed responsibility for the daytime attack, one of its deadliest inside Kenya. It occurred six years after an attack killed 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall and four years after an attack killed 147 students at Garissa University in northern Kenya.

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

Judge Diana Kavedza during her sentencing said the judgement spoke for the survivors who deserve closure.

She noted “one of the most comprehensive counterterrorism investigations in Kenya’s history, as law enforcement agencies pursued not only the attackers’ immediate associates but also financiers, facilitators and logistical coordinators who enabled the attack.”

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