Killings couldn’t have come at a worse time

By Cyrus Ombati

The killing of human rights activists Oscar Kamau King’ara, the director of the Oscar Foundation, and programme co-ordinator, John Paul Oulu came at a time when Kenya was in a spot over extra judicial killings.

The two were shot dead on March 6 on State House Road on a day that no one expected such an incident could happen. It was a Thursday and the Mungiki sect had called a matatu boycott. King’ara had come out openly to support the strike and asked the operators not to resume operations until their grievances were met.

King’ara kept himself abreast of the development of the strike by giving interviews to local radio stations.

Prior to his killing at about 6.30 pm he had talked on Capital FM condemning the State over alleged killings of innocent youths from Central Kenya.

A few hours earlier, the Government had publicly accused their organisation of being a front for a criminal gang. King’ara then called his friends and asked them to listen to the interview because he would be in a meeting at 6 pm when the story would run on radio.

Meet friends

He said he was to meet students of University of Nairobi before coming to town to meet some friends among them Bernard Momanyi of Capital FM, and human rights activists.

The day had been busy for journalists covering the matatu strike. Indeed, the shooting overshadowed the strike at the end of the day.

About 15 minutes after his killing, a friend called to say there was a shooting near the university of Nairobi hostels. Then there was a string of calls with the callers demanding that I be at the scene.

What shocked me was a caller who said there was a body that resembled King’ara and even gave out the number plate of his car. I was in city restaurant watching news together with Momanyi and few colleagues.

When I told them what the callers said they shrugged me off saying Kingara could not be killed. We tried calling King’ara’s mobile phone but it was not going through.

Senior police officers seemed "unaware" of the shooting but said there was a students’ unrest at the hostels over an incident.

We walked to the scene and met vehicles turning back because of rowdy students. I told Momanyi to pretend we were students for us to reach the scene of the shooting.

He was apprehensive when he got to the vehicle and asked me to check if indeed it was Kingara. He literary wept when I confirmed it was King’ara and said he was among the last people to talk to him.

We were the first journalists at the scene and King’ara’s body was still in the car. I then called the newsroom and broke the news. Police, who watched from far, tried to remove the body but were chased.

heard gunshots

Trouble started when a gunshot was heard at about 10pm sending protestors into hiding.

The students took Kingara’s body and hid it under the hostels’ staircase.When police arrived to pick the body, they were pelted with stones prompting one of them to shoot fatally wounding a student.

They managed to remove the body. King’ara, 37, founded the organisation in 1998, and had presented a detailed finding on police killings to two parliamentary committees.