The Somali terror group that carried out this weekend’s bloody siege at a Kenyan shopping mall has its eye on developing chemical weapons, Brooklyn federal court documents allege.
The revelations emerged in the case of alleged al-Shabab member Madhi Hashi, a former British national facing terror raps after he was arrested last year with two co-defendants as they prepared to travel from Somalia to Yemen, prosecutors said.
In a court filing, prosecutors allege that Hashi is a chemical weapons expert who was in the process of helping his organization develop deadly compounds for use in military operations.
In the midst of a hunger strike protesting his arrest and delivery to America, Hashi looked gaunt in court Monday as prosecutors requested an adjournment while plea negotiations progressed.
Hashi has denied any involvement in terror and his England-based family has blasted his sudden arrest and appearance in a foreign courtroom.
Hashi and his co-defendants “sought to carry out attacks against the United States and Western interests in that region,” prosecutors argued in a letter filed just three days before al-Shabaat gunmen killed dozens of innocents in an attack on an upscale mall in Nairobi.
The radical group surfaced in 2006 as a military offshoot of a radical Islamic movement that governed parts of Somalia at the time.
Designated as a terrorist group by the government in 2008, the group officially allied itself with Al Qaeda in 2012 after issuing a joint statement with the terror unit.
Al-Shabaab has raised funds for its operations through piracy and kidnapping activities, officials allege.