Rights body demands Kenya police face justice for triple killing

Jan 20, 2011, 18:50 GMT

Nairobi - A human rights watchdog on Thursday demanded Kenya properly investigate allegations police officers executed three suspected criminals on a busy road in full view of passing motorists.

Police initially claimed the three suspects were killed in a shoot-out on Langata Road, one of Nairobi's main arteries. But pictures sent to the Daily Nation by a motorist appeared to contradict this version of events.

One photograph showed plainclothes officers standing over two men lying on their stomachs amid halted traffic. One of the officers was pointing a gun at the head of one of the men, who were still alive at the time.

The motorist who took the pictures told the newspaper police stopped a station wagon and made the three men within lie on the ground before shooting them dead.

'Eyewitness reports of this incident depict a disturbing image of police officers who are accustomed to acting with complete impunity,' said Justus Nyang'aya, director of Amnesty International Kenya. 'These appear to be blatant and deliberate killings that amount to extrajudicial executions.'

The three officers involved have been suspended while investigations take place, but Nyang'aya said that police were rarely brought to book, prompting a culture of unlawful killings.

'There must be a prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigation into these killings, and any police officers identified as responsible for participating in them must be brought to justice in that complies with international fair trial standards,' he said.

Internal Security Minister George Saitoti rejected accusations police were essentially free to execute suspects, blaming the killings on 'a few rotten eggs.'

Kenya's police force has regularly been accused of extrajudicial killings.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2008 accused the police force of executing over 500 people suspected of being part of the Mungiki criminal gang, while Philip Alston, the UN's rapporteur on extrajudicial killings in 2009, said the police were essentially running death squads.