Dumb guy pleads guilty and urges court to be lenient coz he has two wives and two kids in somalia?
NAIROBI, Sept 20 (Reuters) - A Kenyan court sentenced a
Somali national to 59 years in jail on Thursday after he
confessed to being a member of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab
rebel group following his arrest in the capital Nairobi last
week.
East Africa's biggest economy has been on a heightened state
of security since sending troops into Somalia to crush al
Shabaab, an Islamist group which carried out a double suicide
bombing in neighbouring Uganda in 2010.
Abdimajid Yassin, 26, was arrested last Friday when police
seized a cache of explosive-laden vests, grenades and automatic
rifles in an apartment in the Nairobi's Eastleigh district.
Yassin pled guilty to 10 counts of possession of explosives,
ammunition and illegal possession of firearms. There was also a
charge of engaging in organised criminal activity and one of
being in Kenya illegally.
A second suspect arrested in the raid pleaded not guilty to
the same charges.
Earlier this week police said they believed Yassin intended
to carry out a suicide bombing but provided no further details.
"I have considered the interest of the country and national
security of the state ...the accused is not remorseful and I
convict him on his own plea of guilty," Magistrate Lucy Nyambura
told the court.
Western embassies in Kenya have warned of potential attacks
several times in the last nine months.
Suicide bombings in Uganda's capital Kampala in July 2010
which killed 79 soccer fans watching the World Cup final were al
Shabaab's first on foreign soil and highlighted both their
intent and capability to strike beyond Somalia's borders.
Hundreds of disenchanted Kenyan Muslims and Muslim converts
have been lured into the ranks of al Shabaab since its militants
launched their insurgency in Somalia five years ago.
