Anti-terrorism police in Eldoret are holding the son of a former Mandera senior police officer on suspicion that he is a member of Al-Shabaab.

Police say 21-year-old Said Amin Maruk, from Turkana County, was arrested by National Intelligence Service officers on information that he had links with the militant group.

“On interrogation, the suspect, who is a Form Four leaver, seemed to have knowledge of the terror group,” a source from the police indicated.

The suspect was handed to the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit in Eldoret for questioning. His phone and personal documents were confiscated for analysis.

He is a son of former Mandera Town OCPD James Ekai Maruk, who died in a road accident on February 17 in Garissa.

The officer was travelling with 10 other people, among them eight police officers, when the vehicle veered off the road and landed in a ditch in Madogo.

Mr Maruk was flown to Nairobi together with his wife and child but died at Kenyatta National Hospital.

The arrest comes after it emerged that one of those involved in the April 2 Garissa University College terrorist attack that left 148 people dead was the son of a government official.

Abdirahim Abdullahi was reported missing to the authorities last year by his father, a chief in Mandera.

His father was concerned that he had become radicalised and had joined Al-Shabaab.

Source:Daily nation