"Kenyan policeman tells of executions" by Associated Press | February 25, 2009
NAIROBI - A Kenyan policeman who was later killed saw other police officers execute 58 suspects instead of arresting them, he is seen saying on a newly released video.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a government appointed body, released the video yesterday and demanded the resignation of the country's police chief, Mohammed Hussein Ali, to allow an investigation to take place.
In the recording, made by the commission last July, Police Constable Bernard Kiriinya described how as a driver with the Special Crimes Prevention Unit he witnessed 58 such executions within one year. Kiriinya added that his seniors sometimes said Ali ordered the killings. Four months later Kiriinya was killed, said Hassan Omar Hassan, the vice chairman of the commission.
"Based on our preliminary investigation on the circumstances surrounding his death . . . (the commission) strongly believes that the police are behind the execution of the whistle-blower," Hassan told journalists.
Hassan said Ali should resign to allow investigations because Kiriinya's testimony "alarmingly reveals that at its most extreme the Kenya police may be a highly corrupt criminal racket and that the police and organized crime may be one and the same."Truthfully, that sounds like ANY STATE AUTHORITY!!!
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"Students riot in Kenya over slayings" by Associated Press | March 6, 2009
NAIROBI - Kenyan university students clashed with riot police last night over the slayings of a former student leader and an activist who documented alleged extrajudicial killings.
It was unclear who shot former student Paul Oulu and lawyer Oscar Kingara as they were stuck in traffic outside the university last night. The deaths occurred a week after a UN official accused Kenya's police of running death squads and the day that a government spokesman accused Kingara of being linked to a notorious gang.
Mobs of angry students pushed the victims' blood-spattered car into a university compound and defended it with bottles and stones, refusing to release the bodies to police because they accused them of complicity in the killings. Government and police spokesmen did not return messages seeking comment.
The UN specialist on extrajudicial killings, Phillip Alston, last week accused the government of running death squads during a crackdown on the notorious Mungiki gang. He said the police commissioner and attorney general should resign immediately. The government said it would look into the accusations.
Like here in AmeriKa?
See: "Executive Assassination Ring"
Students repeated Alston's demands for the resignations of top officials last night, saying they had lost confidence in the country's judicial system. The deaths will further strain a coalition government already racked by corruption scandals and accusations of impunity. More than 1,000 Kenyans were killed a year ago in weeks of riots after disputed election results.
Many were shot by police, and rights groups have accused politicians of orchestrating the violence.They are the ones who START WARS, right?
Although both sides have agreed to share power, they have yet to address the key causes of the violence or establish a tribunal.
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"Inquiry sought on killing of Kenyan rights activists" by Alan Cowell, New York Times | March 7, 2009
PARIS - The US ambassador to Kenya and a senior UN official called yesterday for an independent investigation into the murder of two prominent Kenya human rights activists, shot to death at close range Thursday while their car was blocked in heavy traffic in Nairobi.
"The United States is gravely concerned and urges the Kenyan government to launch an immediate, comprehensive, and transparent investigation into this crime," Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, said in a statement, which urged the authorities to "prevent Kenya from becoming a place where human rights defenders can be murdered with impunity."
The two slain activists, Oscar Kamau Kingara and John Paul Oulu, were heading in their car to a meeting of human rights activists when unidentified assailants opened fire. There were no reports of arrests.
A news photograph depicted what the caption said was Kingara at the wheel of the car, shot in the face and leaning toward the center of the vehicle. In 2007, the organization he founded and led, the Oscar Foundation, published a report called: "Licensed to Kill: Extrajudicial Execution and Police Brutality in Kenya." Oulu was the Oscar Foundation's communications and advocacy director.
The killings reflected what Florence Simiri-Jaoko, chairwoman of Kenya's state-funded National Commission on Human Rights, called a "pattern" of murders of people "linked by the fact that they were doing work on extrajudicial killings," the Associated Press reported.
Last month, the two men met with Philip Alston, the UN special investigator the on extrajudicial executions, and provided him with "testimony on the issue of police killings in Nairobi and Central Province," Alston said in New York. "It is extremely troubling when those working to defend human rights in Kenya can be assassinated in broad daylight in the middle of Nairobi," Alston said.
Shortly before the two men died, a government official issued a statement linking the Oscar Foundation to the illegal Mungiki sect and a police officer threatened to take action against those responsible for demonstrations supporters of the sect. A police spokesman denied that police were involved in the killing of the activists.
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NAIROBI - Stone-throwing students clashed with Kenyan riot police and paramilitary officers yesterday during a protest demanding the resignation of the police commissioner over the killings of a student and two activists last week.
More than 1,000 students marched peacefully through the city center, but the demonstration degenerated into violence after youths began throwing stones and looting shops. Taxi drivers threw stones back, sparking a stampede.
I'm SENSING some AGENT PROVOCATEURS and an AMERICAN HAND, folks!!!!
All the hallmarks of it!
About 100 students eventually moved onto the main campus at the University of Nairobi and showered the police and passing traffic with stones. Police responded with tear gas and baton charges....
The student was killed by police during a protest Thursday against the killing of the activists outside one of the residence halls at the University of Nairobi. Three policemen were arrested in the student's death.
The police commissioner has said that authorities were investigating all possibilities regarding the killings of the activists, whose deaths occurred a week after a UN specialist accused Kenya's police of running death squads and hours after the activists' denunciation by a government spokesman. The police commissioner has repeatedly dismissed charges of police links to hit squads.
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