All eyes on Uhuru after MPs wrap up probe

PHOTO | FILE President Uhuru Kenyatta with Deputy President William Ruto and Defence Secretary Raychelle Omamo address the nation from State House, after the end of the Westgate Mall siege in September last year.  NATION

In Summary

• House team non-committal on who should take responsibility for the attack
• According to the report, staff in the Immigration Department, Registration of Persons department and the Police Service should be blamed for the attack that killed 67 and maimed over 180 people.
• The audit says that the body parts found at the ruined building and guns recovered at the venue belonged to the terrorists.

By ANDREW TEYIE
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Will President Uhuru Kenyatta now appoint a commission of inquiry into Westgate terrorist attack after a joint committee of Parliament found no one responsible for security lapses that led to the attack?

This is one of the big questions with the revelation that the joint House committee which tabled its report before Parliament in December was non-committal on who should take responsibility for the attack and only blaming government institutions for the brazen attack.

According to the report, staff in the Immigration Department, Registration of Persons department and the Police Service should be blamed for the attack that killed 67 and maimed over 180 people.

While declaring the end of the three-day siege in September last year, President Kenyatta announced that he would appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate security lapses that resulted in the September 21 attack.

In October, Attorney General Githu Muigai was quoted on France 24 channel saying the President is waiting for Parliamentary investigations among others process to run the course before the commission is established.

“It (commission of Inquiry) will happen because we are committed to that. We weighed that doing this immediately against waiting for all the forensic reports and all the other technical reports; we thought that we should allow this to go forward first. There was a parliamentary inquiry, we thought it should wind up first, and there were criminal inquiries by the Kenya criminal investigations department and other friendly investigating agencies assisting us. We thought all this should go first and they should form part of the material we use in the commission of inquiry,” said Prof Muigai.

The Parliamentary commitee report contains the much awaited forensic audit report which is yet to be made public. The forensic audit was done by a multi-agency security team which also involved American FBI.

According to the forensic audit report, four terrorists were involved in the report. The terrorists were Mohamed Abdi Noor (Somali national),  Mohammed Hassan Dhulhulow a.k.a Abu Baraa Al Sudani (Norwegian), Yahye Osman Ahmed a.k.a Arab (Somali national) and  Ahmed Hassan Abukar (Somali national).

“All the four (4) terrorists were killed during confrontation with the security forces. Their body parts, weapons and personal effects were recovered from the scene of attack,” says the forensic audit which was an appendage of the report.

The audit says that the body parts found at the ruined building and guns recovered at the venue belonged to the terrorists. The ammunition recovered was for AK47 rifles. Also recovered from the scene were two G3 rifles, one Scar rifle and four live grenades.

“Body parts including one in a military boot were recovered from the scene on October 1, 2013. Two bodies believed to be of military personnel, one M4 rifle and a military knife were also recovered from the scene on October 2, 2013,” says the report.