Detectives in Mombasa are piecing together information regarding a man suspected to have committed suicide by jumping off Nyali Bridge on Tuesday after his previous and recent movements provided clues to possible links to terrorism.

Police have dismissed as baseless earlier reports indicating that the deceased was the man seen in a viral video demanding pay from his employer.

The deceased’s mother Jane Wanjiku said her son had disappeared for the last eight years, only to resurface two months ago and was residing with his estranged wife in Bamburi, Mombasa county.

“He is my last born son. After we relocated from Kiambu to Lamu county, he converted to Islam and later disappeared from home in 2016.

I have no knowledge of where he has been all that time,” she said.

She added that three days prior to his death, he had called his mother asking her to send him bus fare to enable him travel to Lamu since his life was in danger. 

“He made a distress call on Saturday asking me to urgently send him money to enable him come home since his life was in danger, claiming that some bad people from Somalia were after his life after he decided to leave their operations for good,” she said. 

Shabaab links

“I am not, however, sure if he meant he had been involved with the al Shabaab militants for the past years or he meant police officers were after his life,” she said.

However, Coast regional DCI boss Washington Njiiri said detectives were investigating the deceased’s records to establish possible links to terrorism.

He identified the deceased as Hassan Kirigo from Majengo area in Kiambu county and that he was residing in Majengo in Mombasa county after arriving in the country in May this year from an unknown destination.

“I am aware of the matter in which a young man committed suicide by jumping into the Indian Ocean,” said the police boss.

“I have no reports about his connections to terrorism or if he was on the police radar in connection with terror activities in the past,” he said.