Somali president’s aides ‘sent arms to militants’

The United Nations has accused two advisers to the Somali president of sending arms to al-Shabaab in a shipment which arrived just weeks after the Islamist militant group’s fighters stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi last September and killed at least 64 people.

One of the aides, Musa Haji Mohamed Ganjab, allegedly claimed to have delayed an attack on a militant stronghold in Barawe,where US Navy Seals tried but failed to arrest the commander alleged to have orchestrated the Westgate mall attack, according to a leaked UN investigation.

The allegations, in a letter to the Security Council, are the latest blow to the president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud,a former university professor who has been mired in scandal since he was elected in 2012.

The report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea also accused President Mohamud of conspiring with the aides, a former minister and Shulman Rogers, a US law firm, to misappropriate millions of dollars of public money which was banked abroad before 1991, when the country slid into civil war. The second aide was named as Abdiaziz Hassan Giyaajo Amalo, a US citizen of Somali descent whose uncle was a former governor of the central bank.

 

Both aides were allegedly “double dealing” with the militants while working with Shulman Rogers and President Mohamud to recover overseas assets.

 

Both men denied all the allegations, including having ever worked for the president. Mr Amalo said the report was “false and malicious”.

 

Mr Ganjab, who is now based in South Africa, said the UN had “no evidence”.

 

Shulman Rogers said all its actions were for “the public good of Somalia”.

 

President Mohamud’s office declined to comment.