Kenya terror convict kills himself in jail

A Tanzanian man convicted of involvement in the 2015 attack on a Kenyan university that left 148 people dead has killed himself in prison, media reports say quoting the police and prison sources.

The four attackers were shot by security forces at Garissa University, but Rashid Charles Mberesero, and two others, were convicted last year of conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack and of belonging to the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabab.

Mberesero got a life sentence.

Kenya’s Standard newspaper reports that he had mental health problems in prison and was seeing a psychiatrist.

The Daily Nation says that Mberesero hanged himself inside his cell using a piece of a blanket.

The 2015 attack led to huge outpouring of grief in Kenya with people holding candle-lit vigils for the victims.

Al-Shabab says it has been at war with Kenya ever since Kenyan forces entered Somalia in October 2011 in an effort to crush the militants who were fighting the UN-backed government there. (BBC)