Tanzanian national Rashid Charles Mberesere, who is accused of taking
part in the massacre of 148 people at Garissa University College on
April 2, 2015, appears in front of the court in Nairobi on April 9,
2015. Rashid lied to his mother that he was going to school before
joining Al-Shabaab. PHOTO | PAUL WAWERU |
NATION MEDIA GROUP.
When Fatma Ali said goodbye to her son in
January, she expected to see him again three months later— not as a
terror suspect but as a brilliant science student coming home for a
break.
Little did she know it, but
the next time she would see him would be when the 21-year-old was under
arrest in Garissa. His crime: Taking part in a terror attack that left
148 people dead.
Rashid Charles
Mberesero did not see his father for 20 years and had been raised by a
single mother from 1994, when his parents separated after endless family
squabbles.
But as the Form Five
student bid his mother goodbye to return to Bihawana High School in
Dodoma, he had a big secret in his heart.
DANGEROUS TERRORIST
Deep
inside, he was already a dangerous terrorist, though his mother saw
only a good boy who passed his exams and joined Advanced Secondary
School to study Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Four months after the two bade each other farewell, bad news arrived from Kenya.
Rashird
had been arrested for allegedly taking part in a terror attack in which
148 people, most of them students, were killed at Garissa University
College.
Rashid’s mother was devastated and shocked.
She had hoped to have a doctor, an engineer or anything valuable, as her son—and now her hopes are shattered.
SADDENED BY THE NEWS
“I
still do not know the person who enticed my son to join Al-Shabaab and I
have been saddened by the news that he has been arrested in Kenya,’’
she says.
According to Fatma, the family only realised that Rashid had been arrested through a television broadcast.
“I think he met these terrorists at his school,’’ she says.
She
denies, though, that the-21-year-old was a resident of Usangi Village
in Mwanga District and clarifies that he was from Gonja and studied at a
local secondary school—and passed with flying colours.
“He
was selected to join Bihawana High School in Dodoma and came home for
his holiday before he said goodbye to me when going back to school,’’
she recalls.
When Kilimanjaro-based
transporter Charles Temba finally met his son last year, it was a happy
reunion—and supposedly the beginning of a new chapter in their lives.
SINGLE MUM'S PRODUCT
The two had not seen each other since 1994, when the parents separated. He was pretty young at the time.
Mr Temba admits that Rashird is his biological son, born in 1994, but he had lived with his mother all his life.
“I have never stayed with him for all those years,” he recalls.
This
is why, Mr Temba says, when the two were first introduced, he saw a new
life, a happy beginning with the son he had not seen for two decades.
But,
unknown to Mr Temba, the new-found reunion would soon be shattered—not
by separation this time but by his actions as a father.
After the reunion, the first thing Mr Temba did was to convince his son to convert to Christianity.
STUCK WITH ISLAM
But
Rashid vehemently rejected the idea on the grounds that he could not
suddenly ditch Islam, the religion he had followed faithfully for 20
years, ever since he was a child.
Although
Rashid, who was arrested in Kenya last week for allegedly taking part
in the university massacre, rejected his father’s call, he did attend
church three times—but only because his father told him to do so.
After
snubbing efforts to get him to convert to Christianity, Rashid’s
relationship with his father was strained and he stopped communicating
with him.
To Rashird, this was the beginning of a new chapter in his life—joining Al-Shabaab terrorists.
Mr
Temba says he was shocked to learn that his son was being accused of
taking part in the gruesome attacks masterminded by Al-Shabaab.
RESIDENTS' SCHOCK
The
news of Rashid's arrest and his link to Kilimanjaro came as a shock to
most residents of the region, including Mwanga MP and Water Minister
Jumanne Maghembe.
Asked how she felt
after a resident of her constituency was linked to a terrorist group,
Same East MP Anne Kilango Malecela said the news came as a shock.
“I
am saddened by this information and I think it is high time our
security operatives increased their intelligence because there are bad
indicators of terrorism,’’ said Ms Kilango, who is also the Deputy
Minister for Education and Vocational Training.
Maore Ward Councillor Hamad Sempobe described Rashid as a controversial young man who was suspected of using drugs.
GOD-FEARING MAN
But he was quick to point out that he later changed his behaviour and appeared to be a God-fearing man.
Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner Leonidas Gama vowed to crack down on networks uspected to have links with Al-Shabaab.
“After
receiving all this information, we made a follow-up including his
communications in order to establish whether he received his training
outside the country or was recruited here,’’ said the RC.
The-21-year-old
student was hauled into a Nairobi court on Thursday and the prosecution
was allowed to hold him until May 7, 2015.
Rashid is said to have confessed to being a member of the terrorist group.
HID ON THE ROOF
“Investigations
so far have established that the suspects had contact with the
attackers,” Prosecutor Daniel Karuri said on Tuesday, adding that
preliminary investigations on his call data had revealed that the
suspect had been in constant communication with several contacts in
Somalia suspected to be Al-Shabaab operatives.
The Tanzanian national is said to have been in his hideout for eight hours before he was arrested.
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