July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Thursday, July 26, 2001 - Web posted at 09:18:44 GMT

Kenyan police shoot dead seven suspected gangsters

COLOR="#333333">NAIROBI - Kenyan police shot dead seven suspected bank robbers on Wednesday after ambushing their minibus in the bloodiest shoot-out in the capital in months, witnesses said.

Police said the suspects had started shooting first, forcing their officers to fire back.

"When they (the suspects) realised they were ambushed, they jumped from the bus and began shooting at the officers, who returned fire," Deputy Provisional Police Officer Bernard Kimeli told Reuters.

Police repeatedly drove back scores of bystanders who gathered at a junction on the busy Mombasa Road on the outskirts of Nairobi to view the dead, sprawled in pools of blood on a grass verge in front of a hotel.

The vehicle had been identified with the help of a tip-off from a man who had seen armed men boarding the bus.

"A good Samaritan called in to avert an armed robbery," District Officer Benjamin Gachichio told Reuters as officers loaded the bodies into a police vehicle.

Kenyan television regularly relays gruesome images of robbery suspects shot by police in gun battles in the capital, but residents said it was rare for such a large group to be gunned down.

Human rights groups accuse the police of a trigger-happy attitude to fighting crime, saying they often shoot suspects instead of arresting them, charges the police deny.

Police said they had recovered four handguns and rounds of nine mm ammunition and arrested an eighth suspect.

They said they had information that the gang had been on its way to rob a bank in Machakos, 50 km southeast of Nairobi. - Nampa-Reuters

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