Police have arrested a Senate employee in connection to an Al Shabaab plot to bomb parliament

Police have arrested a Senate employee in connection to an Al Shabaab plot to bomb parliament

Police officers have arrested a Senate staffer in connection to an Al Shabaab plot to bomb the Kenyan parliament. Ali Abdulmajid, who has worked for the Kenyan parliament for nearly a decade, was arrested by officers on Sunday.

A leaked intelligence report that was widely shared on social media on Monday linked him to an Al Shabaab plot to execute an audacious attack on one Kenya’s most heavily guarded buildings. The report authored by Nairobi Central Police OCPD Paul Wanjama makes reference to Abdulmajid although it doesn’t explicitly mention him.

“The group intends to use an operative who is affiliated to Pumwani Riyadh Mosque who is also a staff member at the senate to actualize the attack,”

reads the report in part. Abdulmajid has been the vice- chairman of the Riyadh Mosque since 2009.

Abdulmajid association with the Pumwani Riyadh Mosque landed him in trouble in 2011 when a UN Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia accused the mosque of funding Al Shabaab. Abdulmajid strenuously fought the allegations, even writing to then Police Inspector General David Kimaiyo to request an investigation to clear his name.

Prominent human rights advocate Al-Amin Kimathi has however leapt to Abdulmajid’s defense pouring scorn on intelligence reports linking him to terror.

Kimathi also thinks Abdulmajid’s arrest might have less to do with his alleged link to Al Shabaab and more do with the land tussle surrounding Gikomba market a substantial part of which is own by the mosque.