Ali says activists may have been killed by gang

By Cyrus Ombati

The suspects in the rights activists killing had trailed the two for a while, Police Commissioner Maj-Gen Hussein Ali has said.

Describing the incident as a cold-blooded murder, the police boss denied any of his officers might have been involved saying it was too early to make such a judgement.

"It could be a set up by people who knew them, work of a criminal gang or a bad deal. But this is pure murder and we will get those behind it," said Ali.

He said they are looking at different angles into the Thursday night incident that also led to the death of a third year university student Edwin Ogaro.

Kingara had been in his office for the better part of Thursday monitoring the Mungiki protests that were under way. He talked to The Standard on Saturday moments before his death and dismissed Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua’s claims that his organisation, Oscar Foundation, has been receiving donor funds for Mungiki and threatened to sue him.

"There was no Mungiki protest because this was organised for the widows and children of those killed by police," he said.

From there, he said he was to drive to the Ufangamano Hall near the scene where he was gunned down at 4pm to meet friends and university students.

According to his colleagues, he had been at his office, located at China Centre along Ngong Road, monitoring the events.

After holding the Ufangamano meeting while in the company of Oulu, Kingara gave out leaflets, which asked Kenyans to don black T-shirts to remember those killed in the past two years. Witnesses said the two got into their car and drove off towards the city centre to meet a journalist for another interview.

Caught up in traffic, a van pulled ahead of his white Mercedes Benz car at 6pm before two smartly dressed men jumped out and shot them.

A student who watched from his third floor room said the men insulted King’ara and his colleague before one of them shot him four times at close range.