3 months after his elder brother Baktash Akasha was handed 25 years imprisonment for dealing in drugs, it was Ibrahim's turn to face the judge on Friday, to face similar charges.
But apart from dealing in drugs as the second in command in the Akasha drug chain, after Baktash, the New York court also heard that the accused was also a very violent and dangerous man back in Mombasa, before his extradition.
The court was told that he never thought twice before unleashing violence on people, and also had a number of guns, which he openly displayed on his social media pages.
Among his victims, the court was told, is politician Stanley Livondo, who he threatened to shoot after fistfight which emanated from an encounter in a Mombasa mall in 2015.
On another incident, he took photos of a man he had brutalized and who was fighting for his life in the ICU, after bribing the doctors, possibly to use it to brag on social media.
“He had a penchant for guns and violence, as demonstrated at the hearing and by the numerous photographs of firearms found on his cell phone. He was deeply involved in the Akasha Drug Trade Organisation’s most recent criminal chapter, its efforts to avoid the reach of this court’s authority through a pattern of drug-fuelled bribery in Kenya,” the US government told the court in a memorandum.
However, in his defence, Ibrahim blamed his actions on his family, saying that he was brought up in a family of drug dealers, resulting in stress and abuse, which pushed him into drug abuse and consequently, drug dealing.
He also claimed that with his brother entrusting him with some of the operations, which he could not refuse as per the Kenyan culture's dictates on obedience, he soon found himself in the trade.
“Ibrahim’s history and characteristics are not of a man who was some bigshot drug trafficker. His childhood was riddled with abuse and humiliation. He grew into a man with very little backbone because Kenya culture did not permit him to disrespect elders,” his defence read.