Chaos as youth attack policemen
Kasarani OCPD Augustin Thumbi with former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga after some police officers were injured during a fracas between plain cloth officers and followers of Maina Njenga's Hope Church International. SALATON NJAU
Three police officers were on Sunday beaten up and detained by members of a Nairobi church led by former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga.
The officers were responding to a distress call from the Hope International Church, claiming that a man with a gun had entered the compound.
When the police arrived, the members —most of them young men— turned on the officers claiming they had come to kill their leader, Mr Njenga.
Trouble started when a man drove into the compound and asked to see Mr Njenga. When he was frisked, he was found with a gun.
“We talked with him and he said that there was a plan to kill me. He said he had come to warn me in advance,” Mr Njenga told journalists in the presence of his lawyer, Mr Paul Muite.
Mr Njenga said the man claimed the murder plot had been hatched by a top politician from central Kenya with the support of senior police officers.
“The man said 18 police officers from GSU had been detailed to kill me by Wednesday and he wanted me to be privy to this plot,” Mr Njenga alleged.
The former Mungiki leader said he asked the man to repeat the claims to the congregation before he called the police.
But when police arrived in an unmarked car, they were confronted and overpowered by a charged crowd and their weapons seized. Their car was also damaged.
Kasarani police boss Augustine Nthumbi said the man, whose name was not immediately given, is licensed to carry a firearm.
“We received a report that a man had been spotted with a gun at the church. We raised our officers who were on patrol nearby and directed them there,” he said.
The youths also searched the officers’ car and found a number plate which they gave to Mr Njenga, who displayed it to the crowd amid shouts of “Wauaji (killers).”
Return of Mungiki
The ‘informant’ was whisked away to Muthaiga police station for interrogation.
On Wednesday, police cancelled a meeting organised by Mr Njenga and other leaders to counter Gema and Kamatusa rallies held earlier.
Police had to fire in the air and lob tear gas at hundreds of youths who had turned up for the meeting at Jumuia Conference Centre, Limuru.
Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said Mungiki was planning to use the meeting to relaunch.
But Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Justice minister Eugene Wamalwa condemned the use of force to disperse the crowd. Mr Odinga directed Internal Security minister George Saitoti to investigate the police. (READ: Police battle youths after anti-Gema meeting flops)
