Police are now suspecting that Mahir Khalid Rizik, the Al Shabaab militant who blew himself up at the DusitD2 Hotel on Tuesday last week, was on drugs.
The 25-year-old Kenyan national blew himself near the Secret Garden Restaurant within the Dusit Complex, minutes before fellow militants stormed the hotel.
The police are now suspecting that Mahir could have been under the influence of drugs to give him enough courage to carry out the life-taking task, reports the Standard.
The latter is suspected to have joined the fighters in Somalia in 2015, after participating in killing a police officer at the Royal Court Hotel in Mombasa in 2014.
The police believe that he has been under drug use for the entire 5 years he was being radicalised while being trained to become a fighter.
This comes at a time when a section of his immediate relatives are under police interrogation as the law enforcers seek information that might aid in the ongoing investigations.
Mahir was born and raised in Majengo, Mombasa County, and is said to have escaped to Tanzania after killing the police in October 2014.
He then crossed over to Somalia in early 2015.
According to the police, his radicalisation can be traced to his days in Mombasa when he attended his prayers at the Masjid Musa mosque.
The mosque is associated with some radical preachers and persons, among them, slain preacher Aboud Rogo and Ramadhan Hamisi Kufungwa, the man who recruited Mahir.
The attack left 21 dead and scores injured.