Mombasa court renews warrant against Samantha Lewthwaite

A Mombasa court has renewed arrest warrants it had issued against British fugitive terror suspect Samantha Lewthwaite and Kenyan Habib Ghani Saleh alias Osman.

Senior Principal Magistrate Richard Odenyo extended the order for police to arrest the two who have been on the run for almost three years.

Mr Ghani is believed to be a key Al-Shabaab member who was reported to have been killed last year in a dawn raid alongside American citizen Omar Hammami in Somalia.

Last week, a British police told a court in Mombasa that a laptop he had examined in relation to a case involving another British terror suspect Jermaine Grant belonged to Lewthwaite.

Police had previously linked her to the laptop recovered in one of the houses she allegedly rented in Mombasa.

However, Scotland Yard computer forensic expert Stephen Ball, who was testifying in a case in which Grant is charged with having explosives, did not identify Lewthwaite by name.

Last year, Interpol issued an international “red tape” against the woman, also referred to as “white widow” by British media.

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The witness also declined, despite pressure from Grant’s lawyer Chacha Mwita, to discuss the contents of the laptop.

“Laptop exhibit number M55 is thought to belong to a female that is not in court and is currently wanted by the authorities in Kenya,” Mr Ball told senior principal magistrate Joyce Gandani.

Ms Lewthwaite and Mr Ghani were charged in their absentia jointly with one count of unlawful possession of explosives while in Mombasa in 2011.

The two are also facing charges of possessing AK47 assault rifles and hundreds of ammunitions that were recovered at her suspected hideout in Nyali following a raid by anti-terror police officers.

Prosecutor Simon Waithaka applied for fresh warrants against the 'White Widow’ to give police more time to produce her in court.

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