World Bulletin/News Desk

A Kenyan suspect on Sunday narrowly escaped a raid by anti-terror police unit in the coastal city of Mombasa, while his younger brother was gunned down by police.

"We have been trailing the suspect for a long time," Geoffrey Mayek, Mombasa Island area Officer Commanding Police Division, told Anadolu Agency.

"He has been on our radar, we suspect that he has been making trips to Somali for training by Al-Shabaab," added Mayek.

The morning raid was conducted after members of the anti-terror police unit stormed a house where the suspect was reportedly hiding.

"His younger brother was shot after trying to hurl a grenade at the police, luckily the grenade did not explode, it was recovered," Mayek told AA.

Haki Afrika, a human rights organisation in Mombasa, questioned why the suspects had been shot rather than arrested.

"The killing of suspects is unacceptable and the officers responsible must be held accountable," Hussein Khalid, the group's executive director, told Reuters. "You cannot kill someone without subjecting them to the due process of the law."

Mombasa police chief Robert Kitur said the suspect belongs to a group which has been terrorizing citizens in the area and might be linked to the recent killing of two tourists at the coast.

He said that the elusive suspect had trained in Al-Shabaab's camps in Somalia and came back to teach his brother.

"From the scene we recovered mobile phones in good condition so without a doubt we will know who they were communicating with and what they were talking about," Kitur told reporters.

"Our investigations have already started," he added.

The scene where the terror suspect was shot is close to where a female German tourist and a Russian tourist were recently killed in two separate incidents.

Police said that they have mounted a search for the evasive suspect who has reportedly eluded arrest.