Police kill five suspected thugs in Nairobi

Nairobi, Kenya: Five suspected thugs were Tuesday morning shot dead by police in two separate botched robberies in Nairobi and weapons found on them.

According to police, the suspects were all aged between 19 and 25.

The first shooting happened at about 2.30am outside a bar in Kangemi area where a gang of five had raided M-Club and tried to rob patrons of their valuables.

Police said an alarm was raised from the bar and there was one gunshot that was heard from the same direction before they arrived there.

Dagoretti OCPD Rashid Mohamed said the gang had robbed some patrons of their valuables and cash in the attack and was running out when police confronted them.

The officers gunned down three while two escaped on foot.

“Some of the valuables that had been robbed from the patrons were recovered from the suspects together with a Ceska pistol that had 11 bullets,” said Mohamed.

He added they also recovered a spent cartridge from the scene that had been fired by the suspects.

Mohamed said they suspect the men had been involved in a wave of attacks that have been reported in the area.

Two other suspects had been killed in Mowlem area in a botched robbery. Police say the men were part of a gang that had been attacking and robbing motorists and pedestrians at a railway crossing when an alarm was raised.

According to police and witnesses, a motorist whose car had stalled on the road was attacked but managed to drive off and alerted police who were manning a roadblock nearby.

“The officers rushed there and found the men busy attacking and robbing residents prompting a shooting that saw two killed. A homemade gun was found on them,” said police.

The bodies were taken to the mortuary. Cases of armed robberies are on the rise as police struggle to contain the situation.

Elsewhere in Garden estate, police are holding two suspects who were locked in a house as they were busy stealing.

It was drama as the owner of the house, an Italian national pressed an automatic lock of a room where the gang was busy stealing locking two of them inside.

According to police, a gang of five broke in ready to steal valuables. The owner who was in a different room pressed emergency locks and an alarm locking two of them inside as the others escaped.

And when they were arrested, they claimed they were taxi drivers and they had been hired by the other two men who escaped to take them there.

But police did not buy their theory and they locked them up for interrogation before they appear in court.