Kenya: Rights group rejected police criticism on killings

(SomaliNet) A Kenyan rights group rejected police criticism on Wednesday and repeated their call for an international enquiry in brandishing post mortem reports on some of the nearly 500 men they say may have been executed by officers.

But Kenyan police deny carrying out any of the killings, which took place during a crackdown on the country\'s Mungiki criminal gang earlier in 2007. On Tuesday police described allegations their officers were involved as \"irresponsible\" and \"arrogant\".

On Wednesday, the government-funded but independently run Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) said it had no plans to descend to personal insults. But it said since it had carried out a credible investigation and prepared a report the police refused to discuss, \"it would be safe to leave it to the judgment of the Kenyan people to decide who is guilty of unbridled arrogance\".
The Commission showed journalists copies of post-mortem reports for several young men found during the crackdown, all of whom apparently died of gunshots fired from close range.

A Kenyan police spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. KNCHR said the pathologists\' reports did not prove who killed the victims, and urged President Mwai Kibaki to set up a probe staffed by international experts and the United Nations.

\"The Kenyan police have demonstrated that they are either unable or unwilling to carry out investigations to the required international standards,\" KNCHR\'s head of advocacy, Njonjo Mue, told a news conference in the capital Nairobi.

Police Commission Hussein Ali accused KNCHR on Tuesday of grandstanding to win media attention on an issue making headlines less than two months before Kenya\'s December 27 election.

They did not have \"a shred of evidence\" and were not qualified investigators, Ali said.

The Mungiki gang terrorised central Kenya earlier in 2007 with a spate of beheadings and murders after clashing with police in a Nairobi slum. That prompted a government sweep during which scores of suspects were gunned down by the police.

Late on October local human rights groups accused officers of executing suspected gang members and dumping their bodies outside Nairobi after a morgue there was filled to capacity.

Though founded in the early 1990s by members of Kenya\'s largest tribe, the Kikuyu, as a quasi-religious group espousing a return to traditional values, police and observers say Mungiki has metamorphosed into Kenya\'s version of the mafia.

It runs extortion and protection rackets, particularly on Kenya\'s lucrative minibus trade, and is believed to have members in the security apparatus, along with powerful politicians. (Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bryson Hull and Mary Gabriel)-Reuters