MOMBASA - A Kenyan court released on bail Monday a radical Kenyan preacher charged with inciting deadly riots, and accused by the US of supporting Somalia‘s Al-Qaeda linked militants.

Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, also known as Makaburi, is charged with three counts of inciting violent protests in Kenya‘s main port city of Mombasa, after the assassination there last month of fellow Islamist cleric Aboud Rogo Mohammed. Ahmed has denied encouraging that violence, which saw two days of running battles, with grenades hurled at two police trucks, killing three officers and wounding over a dozen others. „I have not seen any compelling reasons to deny the accused his constitutional rights of being out on bond,“ judge Elvis Micheka told the court Monday. Ahmed was ordered to pay a million shilling (12 000 dollars, 9 000 euro) cash bail, as well as other sureties. Trial was set for October 29.

Ahmed - like the murdered cleric, popularly known as Rogo - was also on United States sanctions list for allegedly supporting neighbouring Somalia‘s extremist Shebab, including by recruiting and fundraising for the group. - Nampa/AFP