On the evening of April 1 a black car slowed down in front of the law courts at Shanzu, some 15km north of Kenya’s coastal tourist city of Mombasa. Its occupants in the still-moving car emptied their guns at a party of five men who were walking just outside the courtyard.
Once the dust and screams cleared, radical Muslim preacher Abubakar Shariff Ahmed lay dead in a pool of blood, felled by bullets to his head and torso. His 20-year companion was also killed, while the other three survived.
In truth, few Kenyans bar his supporters will admit to a sense of schadenfraude at the demise of the former grave-digger known as Makaburi (Kiswahili for grave). The fiery cleric had been a hugely divisive figure, especially after media interviews in which he said the Westgate mall terrorist attack in Nairobi last September was justified.
He was avowedly pro-al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-allied Somalia insurgent group that claimed responsibility for the Westgate horror that left 67 dead and which is fighting to topple the fledgling Mogadishu government. …
