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A court in Kenya found two men guilty of helping Islamic militants attack an upscale shopping mall in 2013.
At least 67 people died in the attack by al-Shabab on the Westgate shopping complex in the capital, Nairobi.
The state said the four militants who carried out the attack were found dead in the rubble of the mall.
The militants occupied the mall for four days in one of the deadliest al-Shabab attacks in Kenya.
A third man has not been found guilty of conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism in all cases.
More than 140 witnesses testified in the case. The defendant denied the conspiracy to commit terrorism.
The presiding judge ruled that the two suspects, both Kenyan nationals, will be sentenced on October 22nd.
The lawsuit is the only one that has so far passed over the Westgate shopping mall attack.
- Africa Live: Updates on this and other stories
- How the Westgate attack happened
- “How I survived four jihad attacks in Somalia”
- Who is al-Shabab?
Ferdinand Omondi of the BBC in Nairobi says her beliefs are welcomed in a country that remains on high alert over possible attacks by al-Shabab.
The al-Qaeda subsidiary is headquartered in neighboring Somalia and has carried out a number of attacks in Kenya.
Kenya has troops in Somalia to fight the militants.
Who are the convicted men?
Mohammed Ahmed Abdi and Hussein Hassan Mustafa were accused of planning and committing acts of terrorism and of supporting and supporting a terrorist organization.
The third suspect, Liban Abdullahi, was found not guilty. The Somali refugee was also acquitted of charges of having been in Kenya illegally and of having identification papers due to false presence.
What happened at Westgate?
On a Saturday afternoon in September 2013, armed men entered the mall and opened fire on shoppers, resulting in a four-day siege.
“People panicked, the children were crying,” Surajit Borkakyoty, a survivor, told the BBC that day.
“We tried to calm people down and tell them not to use their phones or keep them silent. We could hear gunshots all the time. It was a martial situation.”
Live television broadcasts showed smoke rising from the complex as armed police and military vehicles surrounded the grounds and dozens of frightened people escaped.
When it was days later, at least 67 people had been killed – 62 civilians, five security officers and the four attackers.
Al-Shabab said he carried out the attack in response to Kenyan military operations in Somalia.
Initially, authorities said there were 10 attackers, then the number was reduced to four. They said they were all killed but forensic tests on their remains were never made public.
Have lessons been learned from the attack?
The rivalry between the police and the armed forces has previously been identified as a factor hindering the response.
There has been better coordination since the attack, correspondents say.
This helped respond to the nearby attack on the DusitD2 hotel and office complex in January 2019 that killed 21 people.
Police and military counter-terrorism units, foreign security guards, ambulances and fire brigades coordinated the end of the attack.
Related topics
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- al-Shabab
- Kenya
- Nairobi
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