Trail of death as gunmen run wild

A day before Mr Mwangi was killed, an employee of Thika Coffee Mills, Mr Eric Ngungi Kathanga, was shot dead by gunmen in Ngara area near Stima Plaza. Mr Kathanga had reportedly been with friends until late into the night and was driving home at about 1.30am when he was blocked by a car that had apparently been following him. He was shot dead at point blank range and the killers fled without stealing anything from him.

A former University of Nairobi student activist, Mr Kathanga was also a budding politician and son of a prominent personality and former chairman of the Cooperative Bank, Mr Bernard Kathanga.

Unknown assailants

The previous night, on May 2, father of three Evans Mburu Njoroge, was shot dead by unknown assailants, as was City Council of Nairobi employee Wilfred Njau Ndungu. On April 30 it was the turn of 59-year old Paul Njoroge Muita to fall to gunmen in the city.

Joseph Kinuthia Waichau, 33, the Thika branch manager of the Kiambu Teachers Sacco, was murdered in Nairobi on April 21, three days after Mr Calvin Nyabuti, a son of former Nakuru Town MP Reuben Oyondi and nephew of former Butere MP Martin Shikuku, was beaten to death by thugs.

A similar fate around the same time befell 23-year old Edwin Roy Kimani Muthoni. On April 17 Mr John Kimani Maina, a director of Kimman Exports, was shot dead in a carjacking incident near the Kobil petrol station on Haile Selassie Avenue. That was around the same time Lt Peter Muchia Mungai of the United Nations offices in Nairobi was accosted and shot dead near his Gachie residence. The gangsters did not take anything from the father of five.

In March, a CID officer Henry Anunda and his son Josephat, a former University of Nairobi engineering student, were killed. Their bodies were found in a coffee plantation in Kiamumbi area in Kahawa West. Although police have blamed the outlawed Mungiki sect for the killing, no arrests have been made.

Police have also established that the two might have been held hostage and forced to withdraw a large sum of money from an ATM and then murdered with the officer’s own gun. One prominent case where there have been arrests is that of Senior Resident Magistrate Rogers Fundi Cheminingwa, who was killed near a bar on North Airport road about 20 meters away from crime-infested Mukuru slums.

Four people, including a military officer, have appeared in court charged with the murder. On April 1 Kenya Institute of Mass Communication lecturer David Kamau was killed by suspected carjackers as he was being driven to his King’eero home in a taxi. Investigations have not led to any arrests.

On March 28, an employee of Soin Insurance Brokers Ms Celine Ochieng died of gunshot wounds at Kenyatta National Hospital where she had been taken after being shot by armed gangsters in a carjacking incident on Jogoo Road.