According to Nairobi Deputy Police boss Richard Kerich ,at about 9 pm on Sunday ,Seven men suspected to be thugs stormed a warehouse in Industrial Area, Nairobi after they had taken hostage of a lorry ferrying dozens of empty gas cylinders.
The seven are alleged to have entered the warehouse and started stealing gas cylinders from the go down when an alarm was raised alerting police.
However, a guard who spoke on condition of anonymity has revealed a different story in the killing of the 7 and said that a group of five police officers who seem to have had prior information of a planned robbery were deployed to the godown well before 8 pm.
They were in civilian uniforms, disguising as watchmen with shukas and armed with Ak 47s and others with pistols.
“As soon as the gang stormed in , the officers pounced on them and shot them” said a guard who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The guard claimed the men were rounded up in one corner and shot by the policemen.
Among the things the suspects are listed in the police report to have robbed include gas cylinders. Police, based on their informers , identified other suspects as Kyalo, Michael and Yohana Karanja alias crew while three others were yet to be identified by last evening.
Investigators have also taken the killed mens fingerprints for official identification.
At the city mortury ,.the killed men were booked as unknown. A closer look at the bodies revealed almost a similar pattern of gunshots.
All them men had multiple gunshot wounds on either the head or on their back an indication that they may have been killed while either running or lying on their stomach.
This seems to corroborate the account of the security guards who claimed the men were shot while lying down.
Among the gangsters was George Maina who has been identified as the ring leader of a seven-man gang who according to the police is a well known criminal in the police watch list, and also a popular and wealthy landlord in Nairobi’s Mukuru kwa Njenga slums.
Police said Maina was the man who was armed with a pistol and was manning the gates while his accomplices stormed the warehouse and stole goods worth millions of shillings.