President’s office speaks on detention of ex-deputy Al-Shabaab leader

Robow, who also served as Al-Shabaab spokesman surrendered himself to the Somali government in 2017 and was arrested in Baidoa in the next year by Ethiopian troops a week before the regional election.

News Keydmedia Online
19 June 2022

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The office of the new Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has for the first time spoken about the long-detention of the former Al-Shabaab deputy leader Mukhtar Robow.

Speaking to the reporters at Villa Somalia, Abdikarin Ali Kaar has questioned who is holding Robow in the custody, adding that the current administration has no idea about the case as no court found him guilty.

“Who is holding Mukhtar under the house arrest? we know he was released, took a passport, donated blood to Oct 14 bombing victims, and then went to Baidoa for running Southwest presidency,” he said.

Robow, who also served as Al-Shabaab spokesman surrendered himself to the Somali government in 2017 and was arrested in Baidoa in the next year by Ethiopian troops a week before the regional election.

He was handed over to NISA – National Intelligence and Security Agency in Mogadishu which put him under house arrest, joining Hassan Dahir Aweys, the top Somali terrorist group leader who surrendered in 2013.

The former terrorist turned into politician Robow has been in the NISA jail for four years without charges brought against him by a court. He is a political prisoner and his detention was described as illegal.

The former president Mohamed Farmajo’s right-hand man Fahad Yasin who served as NISA boss and a national security advisor has been accused of being behind the arrest of Robow and his imprisonment.

Robow was deemed a threat to the president of Southwest State Abdulaziz Lafta-Garen, an ally of Farmajo who asked the influential leader to be kept in prison until he ends his term in the office, sources revealed. He became a victim of Farmajo's regime, relatives said.

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