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Africa: Living on borrowed time, said Kenyan Muslim

FILE - In this Tuesday Oct. 29, 2013 file photo, Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, an influential member of a controversial mosque where two previous mosque leaders were killed under mysterious circumstances, sits in his office in Mombasa, Kenya. Writing in Arabic on Islam flag reads: "There is no God but God and Muhammed is his messenger". The lawyer for radical Islamic leader Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, who had been sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations for supporting the al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group al-Shabab, says his client has been assassinated Tuesday, April 1, 2014 along with another man whose identity has not yet been established, near the Shimo la Tewa prison in Mombasa, Kenya. (AP Photo/Jason Straziuso, File)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The charismatic Muslim leader on Kenya’s coast was certain that he would be killed.

FILE – In this Tuesday Oct. 29, 2013 file photo, Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, an influential member of a controversial mosque where two previous mosque leaders were killed under mysterious circumstances, sits in his office in Mombasa, Kenya. Writing in Arabic on Islam flag reads: “There is no God but God and Muhammed is his messenger”. The lawyer for radical Islamic leader Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, who had been sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations for supporting the al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group al-Shabab, says his client has been assassinated Tuesday, April 1, 2014 along with another man whose identity has not yet been established, near the Shimo la Tewa prison in Mombasa, Kenya. (AP Photo/Jason Straziuso, File)

Abubakar Shariff Ahmed — known as Makaburi — told an Associated Press reporter in October that I’m living on borrowed time. On Monday night, his premonition came true.

Before the interview with AP, two Muslim leaders of what authorities say is a radical Mombasa mosque had already been killed by unknown gunmen. Rights activists blamed government death squads.

Sitting under a cloth with a hand-painted sword on it and a religious text in Arabic, Makaburi said that whoever had ordered his two friends killed would also order his death.

Makaburi, who was accused of links with Somali militants, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen Monday night in Mombasa.

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