Dominic Wabala And Paul Juma
4 July 2009
Nairobi — Six suspected gangsters were on Saturday morning shot dead by police and two loaded firearms recovered following a botched robbery in the city's Gigiri area.
The six had jumped into a compound on Thigiri Road in the upmarket estate and held a gardener and house-help hostage before Special Crime Prevention Unit detectives backed by a security firm alarm response team caught up with them.
According to the gardener, Michael Olubhero, he was attacked by two people who threatened to shoot him and ordered him to open the house.
The gardener said he ran towards the back of the house and activated the alarm. The two gangsters were joined by their accomplices who had jumped over the fence.
"I was working on a flower bed when two men holding pistols accosted me and ordered me to open the door. I ran towards the back of the house and hit a window to activate the alarm. The gangsters were joined by their accomplices but luckily police officers burst in and shot them dead," said Mr Olubhero.
The owners of the house were not at home during the incident.
In another incident, suspected Mungiki gang members on Friday night strangled their accomplice to death in a matatu in the city's Dandora area in what is believed to have been a deal gone sour.
Police recovered the body at Mowlem Estate along with a list of matatu registration numbers and the amount of money paid by each matatu crew to the gang.
Collapsed on three houses
Meanwhile, three people died in Raila Village within Kibera slums when a mound of earth and rocks collapsed on three houses Saturday morning.
The three, a man and two girls, were in neighbouring mud-walled houses when the tragedy occurred at around 6 a.m. Their bodies were taken to the City Mortuary.
Mrs Jackline Achieng', whose two daughters died in the incident, said her husband and their four children were all asleep in their house at the time of the incident.
In the Rift Valley, tension is high in Turkwel on the West Pokot /Turkana border after armed bandits shot dead a respected Pokot elder barely three days after Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Hassan Noor Hassan brokered a peace agreement between the Pokot and Turkana communities.
Pokot County council chairman David Moiben said about nine gangsters armed with AK-47 guns ambushed and shot dead the 70-year-old as he was driving his animals to graze near Kainuk River.
Additional reporting by Philemon Suter
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