Rights groups condemn Kenya police killings

NAIROBI, July 6 (Reuters) Kenya human rights groups today condemned police killings of suspected members of a murderous criminal gang, saying they were not following laid-down procedures.

More than 100 people have been murdered in the past few months by the Mungiki criminal gang or by police hunting them down, according local media.

The police have not been spared the brunt of the gang's activities and have been targeted. According to their statistics, 11 officers were murdered by the gang in June alone.

''The response of the police has been completely unprofessional and unacceptable,'' said Mwambi Mwasaru, executive director of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

''They must act within the rule of law and not engage in criminal acts in the name of fighting crime.'' The group -- which has in the past skinned the head of a victim or left the heads of others in public places to instil terror -- carries out blood-spilling rituals and administers oaths to its members to ensure their loyalty.

In a major crackdown in a Nairobi slum over two days in June, policemen shot dead at least 33 Mungiki suspects in retaliation for the killing of two of their colleagues.

''We are seeing pure, raw brutality. There has not been an appropriate intelligence-driven approach,'' Maina Kiai, executive director of the KNCHR told Reuters. ''We are taking a dangerous path towards being a police state.'' The two groups said police had also not adequately dealt with an upsurge of violence in the Mt Elgon area in the west of the country.

Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe could not be reached for comment, but the government in the past has defended its tactics as necessary to counter the heavily armed gang.

The Mungiki draws its ranks mainly from the Kikuyu, the most populous tribe in the country, and started off as a religious group urging the community to return to traditional values such as circumcising girls.

It claimed to champion the rights of the poor but police say it has metamorphosed into the biggest criminal mafia in the east African country.

Mungiki gets its money by extortion in the country's lucrative minibus transport industry, and some of its victims have been drivers and conductors.

REUTERS GT RK1945