KENYA: Mohammed Abdirahim Abdullahi, 24, a law student at University of Nairobi has been identified as the leader of the Al-shabab terrorists that killed over 147 students last week at Garrissa University College, Kenya.
Nicknamed Ababmo by his classmates at the Law Faculty in Nairobi’s Parklands Campus, he was a sharp dresser, tending to favour tailored suits and loved to shoot pool with his friends.
He had a room on campus but he rarely stayed there, preferring to operate out of Eastleigh, where he was said to run a business selling cooking gas. Classmates assumed that this accounted for the fact that he seemed to have more money than them.
Mr Dedan Wachira, who played pool with him often at Parklands recalled: “I asked him once, and I don’t know whether he was joking or lying, but he told me his suits cost Sh16,000. They looked like they cost that much. He actually introduced me to my first tailor.”
Mr Wachira described his former schoolmate as a well-spoken fellow who did not shy away from making his point of view known in the debates that are regular in law classes.
But below the nice suits and the veneer of normality was a cauldron of hatred and religious fanaticism which culminated in mass murder last week.
The photographs of the dead terrorists, who were also paraded to the public in Garissa, on Saturday, have been widely shared on social media, but Abdirahim was the only one immediately identified by his fellow students.
Additional Reporting by Nation.co.ke
