For two months, a family invited a "Catholic priest" to their house, prayed together with him and confessed their sins.

The "man of God", wearing a white collar and a rosary and armed with a Bible, visited the family every Monday to conduct "prayers" for 30 minutes.

He unmasked his identity yesterday when he strangled a 37-year-old woman during a prayer session.

The "priest" then demanded that the family give him an unspecified amount of money, gold and other valuables.

He asked Ms Fatima Premji to close her eyes for a prayer, grabbed her by the neck and then pushed her into the kitchen. He strangled her with a piece of cloth and left her body sprawled on the floor.

The gangster then armed himself with a knife and stormed into her brother's bedroom, Mr Karim Premji, and threatened to kill him for saying he had no money.

Their ailing sister, Ms Shanshad Merali, was asleep in another bedroom.

Only the slain woman and the "priest" attended yesterday's prayers in the sitting room.

Said Mr Premji: "All along we have taken him to be a genuine priest. He comes with a Bible and we provide candles which are lit during the prayer sessions. If any of us fails to attend the sessions, we give the priest our pictures which symbolically represent us in the prayers."

He said the man was introduced to them by a housegirl who disappeared immediately the woman was murdered yesterday.

Ms Premji's body was sprawled on the kitchen floor when the Nation visited the home at Mount Kenya Court in Westlands, Nairobi.

Police officers visited the home and said they were hunting for the housegirl. The suspect is being held at Parklands police station.

Meanwhile, police yesterday shot dead three gunmen in a dramatic chase in the city.

Three rusty pistols - a Baretta loaded with six bullets, a Colt loaded with three bullets and a Tokalev loaded with seven bullets - were seized from the gangsters.

The seizure brings to nine the number of guns seized by city police in the on-going crackdown on crime since last Friday.

The Nairobi provincial police chief, Mr Geoffrey Muathe, said the gunmen were spotted at 8 am near the Wilson Airport by detectives from Lang'ata police division.

"The officers trailed the gangsters' Peugeot pick-up. When the gunmen realised they were being followed, they opened fire sparking off a fierce gun battle," he said.

Police caught up with the gang on Magadi road as it sped towards the Kenya College of Communication and Technology.

Their vehicle veered off the road and landed in a thicket at the Nairobi National Park when the driver was hit by a bullet.

Two others were shot as they tried to escape into the park. A fourth gunman escaped.

Said Mr Muathe: "We have not established where the four men were going to raid. We searched them and they had no identification documents. Gangsters rarely carry documents that can betray them when they are on a robbery mission."

He said the finger prints of the dead men will be taken to the National Registration Bureau for identifiction purposes.

Mr Muathe said they had not established if the gangsters' vehicle was stolen.

The bodies were taken the City Mortuary.