Was the attack at the Dusit D2 complex an inside job? Well, it turns out that some of the employees at the complex could have had prior knowledge of the planning and execution of the attack.
This is after it turned out that the six heavily armed men who attacked DusitD2 Hotel and office complex had stocked extra weapons in a room within the hotel.
Police officers discovered a stockpile of grenades and rounds of ammunition in a bulletproof room where the commander of the team was hiding before he was killed.
“It took us very long to break into the room because the armoured door was very difficult to break. When we finally did, the commander, who was the last person to be killed, had so many grenades and rounds of ammunition in the room,” said a senior police officer who was part of the operation.
Investigators are now probing the possibility that hotel employees could have facilitated the attackers before Tuesday. While some of the grenades and rounds of ammunition were on the floor, many more were found in different drawers wrapped up in hotel laundry bags.
Police believe the deadly weapons, several rounds of magazines and bombs, may have been brought into the hotel earlier.
“We suspect an inside job considering these people had been frequenting the place as they schemed the attack,” said another officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not the official police spokesperson.
The officers who battled the terrorists said their commander was well trained and seemed to understand the hotel very well.
“The five attackers had a lot of ammunition and their commander was very well trained. He gave us a difficult time and when he hid in the armoured room, that slowed us down as well,” another officer said.
Five suspects, four men and a woman, appeared in court on Friday with their heads bowed in connection with Tuesday’s attack that left 21 people dead.
A Canadian citizen is among the five suspects detained for 30 days as a multi-agency team continues with its investigations. They are the first suspects to appear in connection with the DusitD2 attack but did not take pleas.
The suspects are Joel Ng’ang’a Wainaina, Oliver Kanyago Muthee, Gladys Kaari Justus, Guleid Abdihakim and Osman Ibrahim.
Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji asked for more time to carry out investigations that he described as “complex and transnational.”
Four of the suspects are Kenyan citizens. The fifth is a Canadian-Somali. They were remanded for 30 days.