Kenyan court postpones trial of Garissa terror suspects

The trial of five terror suspects linked to the attack at Garissa University in April failed to start in a Nairobi court as expected on Monday.

Trial magistrate Daniel Ogembo adjourned the case because he was engaged elsewhere and the case will start on Sept. 1.

Defence lawyers led by Mureithi Mbugua complained that prosecution has not supplied them with all copies of witnesses to enable them to conduct their defence.

Mohamed Adan Surow, Mohamed Abdi Abikar, Hassan Aden Hassan, Sahal Diriye Hussein and Rashid Charles Mberesero, a Tanzanian national, are facing the trial.

Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militants stormed the university campus in northeastern Kenya on April 2, killing 148 people. All the suspects were arrested shortly after the massacre.

The court heard that Surow works at a hotel in Garissa town, where evidence shows the attackers had several meals, and that they are well known to him.

According to the prosecution, the Tanzanian, Mberesero, who had failed to explain his presence at the scene. Abikar, Hassan and Hussein were arrested on the day of the attack in a bus from Garissa.