NAIROBI: Mannequins were stripped clean, jewellery cases smashed, racks of expensive suits carted off, dozens of cash registers cracked open and at least one member of the Kenyan security services arrested, caught with a bloody wallet.
The looting of the Westgate mall, the scene of a siege in which scores of people were killed last month, appeared to have the scope and organisation of a large-scale military operation, and many Kenyans are asking if that is what it was.
Four-day siege or four-day shopping spree?
From the first hours after Islamist militants burst into the mall on September 21, executing men, women and children, until a week later when shopkeepers were let back in to sweep up the broken glass, very few people were allowed inside the mall except the Kenyan security forces, mainly the army.
More and more Kenyans believe those soldiers methodically cleaned out the mall, and that the barrages of gunfire ringing out for days were being directed not at the last of the militants but at safes and padlocks to blast them open. Some business leaders even question whether the Kenyan army deliberately prolonged the crisis by saying shooters were still in the building when they were actually dead, to give themselves extra time to steal.
Advertisement Witnesses said that the most they saw militants loot was a couple cans of soda, and shopkeepers cited no instances of panicked shoppers helping themselves to merchandise as they ran for their lives, leading to the widespread conclusion that the security forces must have been involved.
Kenyans are accustomed to corruption - their country is consistently rated as one of the most corrupt in the world - but the evidence of looting amid a national tragedy has been too much for many to take.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/kenyan-mall-looting-blamed-on-soldiers-20131004-2uymp.html#ixzz2glOTPKqn
