Seven foreign sailors were found guilty of smuggling heroin worth Ksh. 1.3 billion into Mombasa across the Indian Ocean were given life sentences by a Mombasa court on Friday.

Yousuf Yakoob, Yakoob Ibrahim, Saleem Muhammad, Bhatti Abdul Ghafour, Baksh Moula, Pak Abdolghaffer, and Muhammad Saleh are the six Pakistanis and the Iranian.

The accused, who have also been forced to pay fines of Ksh. 3.9 billion, have 14 days to appeal Martha Mutuku, chief magistrate of Mombasa.

In 2014, while the Amin Darya ship—also known as Al Noor—was at sea, the accused, who were crew members, were detained on board. They allegedly said they were transporting white cement to Zanzibar.


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Later, a police investigation would show that the ship was transporting 2,400 litres of heroin-laced fuel, 33,200 litres of liquid heroin, and 377 kilograms of heroin in granular form.

In a later operation, the ship blew up 33 kilometres from the Mombasa port at the direction of former President Uhuru Kenyatta, who later reaffirmed that Kenya would not tolerate narcotics trafficking across its borders.

Although magistrate Mutuku stated that the court was satisfied with the evidence recovered from the vessel before it was sunk, the accused people claimed during the trial that Kenyan officials tampered with investigations by sinking the ship before their case was resolved.


According to the defendant, who claimed to have seen a police officer retrieve some substance, "this was corroborated by the defendant. I find no reason why the narcotics would be put by security forces," Mutuku ruled in her decision.