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Police execute men on Nairobi street

20 January 2011 21:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Three Kenyan plainclothes policemen have shot dead three men and dragged them on the tarmac of a busy street in capital Nairobi, APA reports quoting Press TV.

The shooting took place at around 9 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) on Wednesday on Langata Road near Wilson Airport -- located 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of Nairobi, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reported.

All the three men were lying face down when police officers opened fire at them at point-blank range, according to eyewitnesses.

â€œI was driving to town and there were three vehicles ahead of me. Three men [police officers] jumped out of a four-wheel-drive vehicle and aimed their guns at a station wagon in front of them,â€ Daily Nation quoted a man, who requested anonymity, as saying.

Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said on Thursday that the three policemen have been suspended until an investigation of the incident is completed.

â€œWe have to admit there are a few rotten eggs there in the police force and we shall get rid of them,â€ Saitoti said.

â€œDon’t judge the police on the basis that two or so of them have misbehaved.â€

The incident comes as earlier accounts have confirmed that Kenya’s police officers carry out extrajudicial killings and arbitrary executions routinely.

UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston concluded in a 2009 report that Kenyan police frequently execute people and that a culture of impunity prevails in the country’s police force.