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Kenyan court sentences Briton to four years on terrorism charges
Jermaine John Grant, a British man accused of helping plan attacks, is guarded by Kenyan prison warders as he sits in the dock at the Mombasa Law Court in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, May 9, 2019. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Joseph Okanga
By Joseph Akwiri
10/05/2019
MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - A Kenyan court on Thursday sentenced a British man to four years in prison on charges of helping to plan attacks in Kenya and possessing bomb-making materials.
Jermaine Grant was convicted of the offences in late April in a judgement that found him to be in possession of materials to cause explosions including hydrogen peroxide, AA batteries and electrical wire.
He denied the charges and his lawyer said he would appeal against the conviction.
Prosecutors had alleged he had planned to bomb hotels popular with foreign tourists.
Grant has been in custody since 2011, when he was arrested on charges of forging documents in an attempt to obtain Kenyan citizenship. He was convicted of that offence in 2015 and jailed for nine years.
The Mombasa court's chief magistrate Evans Makori said Thursday's sentence would run consecutively.
In an appeal document seen by Reuters, Grant's lawyer Chacha Mwita said there were "screaming contradictions, inconsistencies and lack of corroboration" in the prosecution case.
Mwita told reporters outside the building he thought the court had "overlooked certain fundamental issues of fact and law which we had presented during the hearing."
Grant, who was expressionless throughout sentencing, was sharing an apartment at the time of his arrest with another Briton, Samantha Lewthwaite.
Dubbed the “White Widow”, she had been married to one of four suicide bombers who carried out deadly attacks on public transport in London on July 7, 2005, prosecutors said.
Lewthwaite is still at large and is wanted in Kenya on charges of possession of explosives and conspiracy.
(Additional reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Katharine Houreld and John Stonestreet)
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