Police kill five in Nairobi

By Cyrus Ombati

NAIROBI, KENYA: Five suspected thugs were Thursday evening shot dead by police in an operation in Ruaraka area, Nairobi and a pistol recovered from them.

The shooting incident occurred at Glue-Cola within Ruaraka. The robbers were intending to rob a nearby Mini Price Supermarket.

The five were trailed by police from Flying Squad who had information they had a pistol and planned to commit a robbery in the area.

Nairobi Area head of police Benson Kibue said they were killed after they defied orders to surrender prompting a shooting.

“We believe the men have been behind a series of robberies in the area and Nairobi. We will test the recovered weapon to establish where it has been used,” said Kibue.

Witnesses say police pursued the suspects in a chase and killed them as they escaped on foot.

The killings bring to ten, the number of suspects killed by police in three days alone in the country.

Kibue said police were justified to use lethal force on the suspects because had they hesitated, they would have been victims.

Kibue was responding to complaints that police have killed up to 40 suspects across the country in the past month alone in the war against armed crime.

Civil societies have been complaining that police are killing suspects instead of arresting and charging them in court as required by the law.

Criminals have equally killed almost a dozen people in the same period in attacks in Nairobi and other parts of the country in a wave of crime that has been linked to poverty.

On Tuesday, police killed five suspects in Kapsokwony area, Mt Elgon in an ambush and recovered rifles and pistols with 140 bullets. Another accomplice had been killed the previous day.

CID director Ndegwa Muhoro linked the suspects to an incident in which two police officers were shot dead in a botched operation in the area.