Hiiraan Online

Al-Shabaab militants during a training session in the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia. Four children have told a court how their madrassa teacher recruited them into Al-Shabaab and taught them martial arts.

The children, aged six to 16, said Mr Samwel Wanjala Wambwile alias Salim Muhamud Wambwile also taught them radicalism.

Principal Magistrate Diana Mochache also heard evidence from the children’s parents, teachers, a police officer as well as a children’s officer.

Mr Wambwile is accused of recruiting seven children in the school to become Al-Shabaab members on June 19, 2015.

The magistrate, however, declined to let one of them, a four-year-old nursery school pupil to testify, saying she was too young.

A standard five girl told Ms Mochache that the teacher taught them martial arts and advised them to fight non-Muslims in school.

The children said the teacher, a suspended Maseno University student, carried out the training inside the Jilad mosque.

HATE MESSAGES
A boy, also in class five, told the court that the teacher inscribed the words “Radical Boys” on their shirts and told them all non-Muslims should be persecuted to death.

“He told us not to mingle with non-Muslims in school and at home,” a standard seven pupil said.

The court was also told that the teacher would play loud music in the mosque during the day, disrupting learning at the school, which is 100 metres away.

A teacher, Ms Aisha Omar, said: “He taught his pupils to hate non-Muslims and some had become rude and disrespectful towards teachers,” she said.
A mother of a seven-year-son said he started disrespecting her after attending madrassa because she is a Christian.

Sergeant Kinoni Chenga said he arrested the teacher and confiscated shirts with the inscription “Radical Boys” as exhibits. The case was adjourned to Monday.