But just as they thought they had won some respite, the glass behind them shattered.
“It can’t be them, could it?” Niraj thought.
It wasn’t them. This was another pair. They had come up from the basement to the second floor.
One had on a pink shirt while the other had on a black one.
And just his luck because he was now out of ammunition.
If he thought things couldn’t get any worse, he was wrong because the latest pair hurled a grenade at him.
Fortunately for him, but unfortunately for those on the ground floor, it hit the pillar he was hiding behind, went over the edge and exploded below him.
Thinking fast, he made like he was going to fire; his attackers took cover and he managed to switch pillars and move closer to Kavati.
Between them now they only had six rounds.
“They’re more than we thought and we can’t fight a war by ourselves. It’s time to pull back,” Niraj said to Kavati.
And so they sprinted to the elevator, eager to make a quick getaway.
They did, eventually making it back to the loading bay.
There they met a Caucasian and Indian with pistols in hand heading into the mall.
They were plainclothes policemen who aimed to get as many civilians out as possible.
“We told them where we’d left the terrorists and what was probably the safest way in,” Niraj recounted.
Niraj and Kavati gave the above account as prosecution witnesses five and six in the trial of four suspects charged with aiding the September 21 Westgate terror attack.
Both of them came out of the attack unharmed and apart from surrounding the mall with other security agents that night and the morning of September 22, they haven’t been back since.
Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar, Adan Mohamed and Hussein Hassan Mustafah are on trial for providing safe harbour to the attackers among other charges.
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