Arrest Reported in Kenya Beheading Spree
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aug 22, 6:12 PM EDT
*Arrest Reported in Kenya Beheading Spree*
By TOM ODULA
Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Police arrested a suspected leader of an outlawed
Kenyan group blamed for a string of beheadings and fatal shootings this
year, the man's family said Wednesday.
Ten officers in a special squad formed to combat the Mungiki gang
arrested Njoroge Kamunya, in his mid-40s, at his home in Ongata Rongai,
12 miles from Nairobi, said a cousin, who insisted on speaking
anonymously for fear of reprisals from the authorities.
Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe refused to comment on the report.
The gang has been accused of killing 15 police officers from April
through June and 27 civilians during the year, many of them in beheadings.
Kamunya has been on the run since April, when police issued an arrest
warrant for him and two other men who have 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 means "multitude" in Kikuyu, and members promote traditional Kikuyu
practices, including female genital mutilation.
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.
Kamunya's younger brother, 36-year-old Maina Njenga, was one of
Mungiki's founders but later publicly denounced it. He was jailed for
five years in June for illegal gun possession and drug selling.
At least 112 people have died during a police crackdown on the group
over the past three months.