Somali Muslims in Kenya Freed after Stabbing Attack in Nairobi

Unidentified shopkeeper in Eastleigh area of Nairobi, Kenya. (Wikipedia)

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A Christian convert of Somali descent in Kenya said he is concerned that Muslims who stabbed him in Nairobi have been released from jail as they await trial.

Mohamud Yusuf Ahmed told Morning Star News that Ahmed Ali Mohammed and Issa Shidane Quru, also of Somali descent, stabbed him on Feb. 15, after threatening to kill him on Nov. 17, 2013, saying, “You infidel, you are not supposed to be alive, and we must kill you.”

“The two men stabbed me and left me bleeding,” Ahmed said of the attack in the predominantly Somali area of Eastleigh in Nairobi. “Good Samaritans saved my life.”

A third Somali Muslim, Hassan Ahmed Ali, had joined Mohammed and Quru in threatening Ahmed near a Deliverance Church in Eastleigh in November. The three Muslims then went into hiding after Ahmed filed a report with police about the threat, the Christian said.

Before his conversion, Ahmed had been attending an afternoon gathering at the church, held after Sunday services, since the end of 2012. Following the Sept. 21, 2013 attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi by Islamic extremists from the Somali insurgent group Al Shabaab that killed at least 67 people, Ahmed left Islam and put his faith in Christ, he said.

Mohammed and Quru were arrested on March 20 in connection with the stabbing; they denied assaulting Ahmed and were released on bail. After they failed to show up at an April 10 hearing, however, Senior Principal Magistrate Timothy Okello on April 23 ordered Pangani station police to arrest Mohammed and Quru.

After their re-arrest, the two suspects showed up at a hearing on April 30 along with Ali, the third suspect in the November 2013 threats. They are to be arraigned on May 30 – if they appear. An investigator said a police officer sympathetic to Mohammed and Quru released them under unclear circumstances.

An officer at the Pangani police station told Morning Star News that the two suspects had been released on bail; he declined further comment.

Somalia’s population is close to 100 percent Muslim, according to Operation World, with Somalis equating being born in Somalia with adhering to Islam. Leaving Islam is punishable by death in Somalia, creating a mindset that many Somali immigrants bring to Kenya, which is nearly 83 percent Christian.

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