Kenyan officers suspended over street execution

Three policemen caught on camera on Wednesday as they executed suspects on Lang’ata Road in Nairobi have been interdicted.

Internal Security minister George Saitoti said on Thursday the officers would be temporarily suspended to allow for investigations and possible prosecution.

He spoke as it emerged that two of the men killed by policemen in an incident reported exclusively by the Daily Nation on Lang’ata Road were ex-convicts. (Read: Kenyan police execute three men point blank)

One of them, Hussein Gichuki Mwangi, alias Ochuka or Husush, was released from jail five months ago after serving a term for robbery.

A childhood friend who did not want his name mentioned said Hussein had a criminal record.

“We grew up with him and even helped convert him to Islam but he was involved in criminal activities,” said the friend. He was buried on Thursday afternoon at Kariokor Muslim cemetery.

The other, Paul Njomo was released from Kamiti maximum Security Prison in 2008 after serving seven years for robbery.

After the jail term, Njomo—who like Hussein lived in Mwiki estate—worked as a carpenter, a trade he learnt in prison.

But his wife Assumpta Dinda denied that he was involved in crime. “He was a good man who provided for the all of us,” said the mother of two.

She said that she was not aware that her husband was in prison before they met in 2008. She said that her husband left home at around 6.30am on Wednesday saying he was going to buy carpentry materials in town.

The third man killed was Hezron Mwangi, 27, a mason and still single, according to his father Mzee Lawrence Nganga.

Assumpta told the Nation she learnt of her husband Njomo’s killing from Hussein's second wife, Lillian, a neighbour and family friend who sells shoes in Mwiki.

“She asked me to go the city mortuary and find out what had had happened,” she narrated. Hussein’s marriage to his first wife ended after three years.

Njomo’s sister Ms Esther Wairimu and his uncle conceded that the slain man had a criminal record, but insisted that the carpenter had reformed after his jail term.

Speaking to the Nation from the family home in the Sodom slum in Nairobi’s Kawangware area, Wairimu also revealed that their uncle had last year reported her brother to the police for “keeping the wrong company”.

However, she said the police should have arrested the three suspects and charged them in court instead of killing them. According to Mzee Ng’anga, his son Hezron Mwangi led a secluded life.

He never revealed any of his whereabouts to his family members who even to his death did not know where he resided.

Nation team caught up with the victim’s father and elder brother at the Kasarani Police Station where they had gone to find out the circumstances under which he had been killed.

He sometimes visited his elder brother where he lived in Eastleigh, or at his workplace, but usually on short notice.

“Mwangi did not tell us where he lived or what he did. I was just informed that he had gone missing since Monday and had to travel all the way from Murang’a to Nairobi to look for him,” explained Mr Ng’ang’a.

The slain man’s elder brother, Benson Kirugu, said that when they could not trace him, they decided to check at the City Mortuary.