'Head' of killer group charged
2007-08-25 11:48
Nairobi - A Kenyan court on Friday charged the suspected leader of the outlawed Mungiki sect, blamed for a string of beheadings in recent months, with drug possession, officials said.
Magistrate Hellen Wasilwa barred Njoroge Kamunya from taking a plea bargain for possession of marijuana after police said they planned to file more charges him.
Police officials they were probing Kamunya for several murders, but had to file the drug charges in order to conform with the constitutional directive that a suspect should be freed if no charges were laid out within 48 hours.
The date of the hearing was set for September, said the official.
Kamunya, who arrested on Tuesday, is the brother of Maina Njenga - the former leader of the banned sect who was jailed for five years in June for illegal possession of arms.
New chief of sect
Police say Kamunya is the new chief of the sect, banned in 2002 and blamed for dozens of killings. Some of the victims were beheaded and their body parts strewn in bushes mainly in Kenya's central province.
Police responded with a heavy-handed crackdown, killing scores of Mungiki adherents.
Once a pseudo-religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced rituals such as female circumcision, the Mungiki has fragmented into a criminal gang notorious for activities such as extortion, murder and harassment of women.