Sporadic shooting in Kenya
2008-01-31 16:43
Eldoret - Kenyan police on Thursday battled demonstrators in western towns, injuring at least six people, after an opposition lawmaker was killed in what police said was a crime of passion, AFP correspondents said.
The six were wounded in the Eldoret township after police moved in to disperse demonstrators who had erected illegal checkpoints along the main road to the capital Nairobi.
Protestors razed part of Nyagacho slums on the outskirts of the western town of Kericho, which is near the hometown of the slain Orange Democratic Movement lawmaker David Kimutai Too.
One Kericho resident said: "The situation here is gloomy.
"There is smoke all over the town, shops have been ordered closed and people told to go home and stay indoors. Schools have been closed. There is sporadic shooting everywhere and people are scared."
Police fired teargas canisters to disperse hundreds of protectors in the ODM stronghold of Kisumu, where groceries hurriedly closed for fear of looting that had gripped the lakeside outpost in the recent weeks, an AFP correspondent said.
"If the police are there to maintain law, who should a policemen take somebody's life when we have courts," Vitalis Onyango, a demonstrator, told AFP in one Kisumu slum.
The lawmaker was killed by a traffic policeman in a suburb of Eldoret in what police described as an apparent crime of passion. A lady shot alongside the lawmaker in an Eldoret surbub.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga said the killing was part of a plot to slash the number of opposition lawmakers in parliament, but police commissioner Major Mohamed Hussein Ali said the motive did not appear to be political.
"We are urging people to remain calm and leaders should avoid speculating on the cause of the MP's death. Already the culprit has been arrested and will be arraigned in court tomorrow," Ali said.
Nearly 1 000 people have been killed in rioting and tribal fighting that have gripped the east African state since President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected after December 27 polls. Odinga accuses Kibaki of stealing his way to victory.
Former UN chief Kofi Annan is trying to mediate a deal to end the Kenyan crisis.