Briton killed while fighting for Al Shabaab was on terrorist watch list

The British man killed by Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), during a recent Al Shabaab attack on a KDF base, had been on a terrorist watch list for the last 4 years.  

Thomas Evans Antony was blacklisted as an international terrorist by the United Kingdom on March 18, 2011, four months before he unsuccessfully tried to enter Kenya from Ethiopia.

This is according to a report compiled by Kenyan officials who blocked him and two others at Moi International Airport in Mombasa on July 28, 2011.

Kenya’s ‘The Standard’ newspaper reports that British counter-terrorism officials became aware of Evans'' alleged terrorist links after the then 21-year-old returned from an extended tour of the Middle East and completed Arabic language studies in Egypt during the chaos of the Arab Spring.

British authorities advised foreign nations to stop him from entering their territories.

Before flying to Moi International Airport where he was turned back the same day, Thomas Evans, who was a new convert to Islam, had attained a certificate in electrical installations after his parents Antony Evans and Sally Evans divorced.

Upon conversion to Islam, Evans took the Islamic name of Abdul Hakim and travelled across several Middle East nations after 2001, leaving behind his brother Michael Evans.

Evans’ body is lying unclaimed at the Mpeketoni District Hospital mortuary where it arrived from Manda naval base in Lamu on June 14.

It was positively identified by US forensic experts from DNA supplied by Scotland Yard, hours after he was killed by Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers repulsing an Al Shabaab attack on their camp at Baure in Lamu County.

Eighteen Al Shabaab jihadists, including Evans who was filming the attack on the KDF camp, were killed.

Evans died together with Luqman Issa Osman, a Mombasa native and suspected leader of Jaysh al Ayman, an Al Shabaab affiliate suspected to have been inspired by slain radical Islamist Sheikh Aboud Rogo.

Reports indicate that after his deportation in 2011, Evans most likely sneaked to Kenya in 2013 and went to Somalia from where he, together with Lugman and others, planned and unleashed mass murder in Mpeketoni mid-June last year.