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'Gang boss' up for drug dealing
24/08/2007 14:44 - (SA)
Nairobi - A man named by police as the leader of a Kenyan gang blamed for a string of beheadings this year was charged on Friday with drug trafficking, said court officials.
Peter Njoroge Kamunya could be sentenced to up to 14 years in prison if convicted of selling 42 joints worth $36. The charges did not mention the gang links alleged in an outstanding arrest warrant.
His lawyer, Evans Ondeiki, said the case should be thrown out because Kamunya was held incommunicado for more than twenty four hours without being charged, violating his constitutional rights.
Ondeiki said: "The police were looking for an opportunity to manufacture evidence." Magistrate Helen Wasilwa referred the case to the High Court and released Kamunya on $3 030 bail.
Kamunya's younger brother, 36-year-old Maina Njenga, was jailed for five years in June for illegal gun possession and selling five kilograms of cannabis.
Female circumcision 'promoted'
Njenga was alleged to have co-founded the Mungiki gang, which had been accused of killing 15 police officers from April through June and 27 civilians during the year. Many victims were beheaded.
Kamunya was on the run since April, after police issued an arrest warrant for him and two other men who had since been arrested.
Mungiki was once a quasi-political sect that drew thousands of unemployed youth from the Kikuyu community, Kenya's largest tribe.
Its name meant "multitude" in Kikuyu, and members promoted traditional Kikuyu practices, including female genital mutilation.
It was formed in the early nineties after tribal clashes killed hundreds of Kikuyus and displaced thousands.
The government outlawed the group in 2002 after its members beheaded 21 people in a Nairobi slum following a turf war with a rival group called the Taliban, which drew its members from the Luo community.
At least 112 people had died during a police crackdown on Mungiki for the past three months.
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