Three women arrested in El Wak at the weekend while headed to Somalia were on Monday arraigned before a Mombasa court facing terrorism charges.
They appeared before Mombasa Senior Resident Magistrate Irene Ruguru but were not allowed to plead.
The court has granted police 20 days to continue detaining them as they continue their investigations. The three, Ummul-Kheir Sadir Abdulla a Tanzanian citizen, Khadija Abubakar Abdulkadir and Maryam Said Aboud both Kenyans are accused of travelling to Somalia to join the Al-Shabaab terror group.
According to court documents, the two Kenyans from Malindi were allegedly recruited to join the Al Shabaab terror group through WhatsApp.
Sadir Abdulla was studying medicine at Africa University in Sudan. According to police, she flew to Nairobi from Khartoum where they met and boarded a bus en-route to Somalia through Mandera with the two Kenyans before they were arrested by detectives who had been listening to their phone conversations for months.
Police have since handed over three mobile phones, two laptops seized from the three to the cyber crime unit in Nairobi for data analysis.
After the analysis, police hope to use the information in establishing the extent of radicalisation especially at university, college and secondary schools in the country.
Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa said the three were attempting to sneak into Somalia to join Al-Qaeda allied Somalia militants.
“They boarded a bus from Mombasa and were to travel to Somalia via Mandera. While in Somalia, they were to become jihadist brides while others were supposed to be trained as suicide bombers,” Marwa said.
