MANDERA (Halbeeg News)- A man who was looking for directions to Somalia has been arrested in the border town of Mandera on Friday.
According to security agencies Mr Backstone Agaro, 53, is suspected of joining the armed group al-Shabaab.
He will remain in police custody for seven days as investigations on whether he is linked to terror cells are conducted.
Mandera Resident Magistrate Dancun Mtai allowed the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) to investigate the suspect as they requested in an affidavit.
The security sources said Mr Agaro suspected to be conducting spying activities for al-Shabaab.
The suspect was arrested on March 6 after alighting from a bus in Mandera town at about 10 pm.
The officers told the court that the suspect was found in possession of a notebook in which more than a hundred towns he had visited were listed.
“He did not have a mobile phone which we suspected he hid or [in order to hide his] movements from security agencies,” Mr Nakeel said in the affidavit.
Mr Agaro said he was a carpenter who had been invited into Mandera by friends to join them at construction sites.
“I was asking for a place to sleep and not the direction to Somalia because we arrived in town at night and I was new here,” he said.
Mr Agaro, who is from Vihiga County, said his family lives in Nairobi’s Mbotela estate and that he travelled first to Garissa before going to Mandera.
But he could not explain why he had a notebook with names of Kenyan towns and places he has visited.
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