Violent crime wave sweeping across Kenya*

    * Story Highlights
    * Crisis of crime, violence believed to be linked to coming elections
    * Human rights groups say gangs terrorize people; police "trigger happy"
    * Kenya Human Rights Network says 300 people killed in the last six
months
    * Kenya to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in December

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Crime and violence are at crisis levels in
Kenya in the build-up to elections, as gangs terrorize the population
and "trigger happy" police respond with impunity, human rights groups
said on Wednesday.
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Security Minister John Michuki oversees a piles of illicit arms
collected in Nairobi before the guns were set on fire.

The Kenya Human Rights Network said 300 criminals, police officers,
victims of land clashes and suspected members of a banned sect were
killed in the last six months alone.

"The security and human rights situation has reached a crisis
proportion. Our laws have been neglected. We have reached a severe
national security crisis," Network member Cyprian Nyamwamu said after
the group presented a petition to the government's human rights body.

Kenya, which has suffered cyclical violence each election year since
1992 when it became a multi-party democracy, is expected to hold
presidential and parliamentary elections in December.

"There's a clear link between what's going on and the elections," said
Stephen Musau, of the Release Political Prisoners group, a coalition
member. "Those fearing defeat are connected in one way or another to the
rise in violence."

Central Kenya is being terrorized by a religious-turned-criminal terror
gang known as Mungiki that has killed scores and beheaded some of its
victims. Scores more people have died in the western Mount Elgon area.

There has also been conflict in Trans Mara and Meru regions and police
have arrested members of militia near the coast.

The network, which groups some 50 civil society bodies, said women had
been raped, farms abandoned and businesses closed as a result of the
mayhem -- but criticized the reaction of the police as "trigger happy"
and unprofessional.

"Clearly, something is wrong in this country. The impunity that is
happening ... they cannot get away with it," said Maina Kiai, executive
director of the government's Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

Police have not been spared the violence. In June alone -- which was the
bloodiest month according to the human rights bodies -- 11 officers were
murdered, mainly by Mungiki.

"That's a serious issue for all of us. They are trained and they are
armed. Once they are killed as easily as they seem to be killed, what
does that mean for the rest of us with no training," Kiai said, adding
that the deaths were regrettable.

At least 26 people are missing after a police crackdown on the Mungiki,
the network said. Police killed some 22 people in a Nairobi slum in a
two day operation against Mungiki in June.