Kenyan mob hangs policeman

A Kenyan policeman was lynched by a mob of demonstrators today in revenge for the shooting of an MP by another officer.

The killing came as more than 3,000 demonstrators armed with bows and arrows, spears, clubs and machetes took to the streets in the Rift Valley village of Ainamoi, home to MP David Too who was killed yesterday.

They turned on the officer accusing him of wounding one of them after police opened fire on the crowd.

It was the first police casualty in the violence which erupted after December's disputed presidential election. Police have shot scores of people in the same period and the civilian death toll is now more than 800.

Meanwhile President Mwai Kibaki suggested that political opponents take their grievances over the election to the courts, a move the opposition has rebuffed saying the courts have been packed with Mr Kibaki’s allies.

Mr Kibaki told leaders at the African Union summit in Ethiopia that “the judiciary in Kenya has over the years arbitrated electoral disputes, and the current one should not be an exception.”

Talks aimed at ending the crisis, being led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, resumed today.

Much of the bloodshed set off by the political feud has pitted other tribes, including main opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Luo, against Mr Kibaki’s Kikuyu. Kikuyus, Kenya’s largest ethnic group, have long been resented for their dominance of the economy and politics. Western Kenya’s Rift Valley has seen some of the worst violence.

Police said yesterday’s killing of Mr Too was a crime of passion. He was shot by a traffic officer who discovered the MP was having an affair with his girlfriend, also a police officer. She too was shot dead.

Mr Too was the second MP killed in a week, Mugabe Were was shot on Tuesday as he drove to his house in suburban Nairobi.

Opposition politicians said both were victims of assassination plots meant to rob Mr Odinga’s party of its parliamentary majority.

A Too family spokesman accused the police of a cover-up, saying the MP was not involved with the woman.

Mr Too’s killing increased distrust of police who are already accused of using excessive force.

British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown suggested that only Kenya’s army, could restore peace as police “at this stage seem to be seen as no longer neutral and behind some of the killings.”

But Mr Kibaki insisted that “the security situation in the country is under control.”

In western Kenya, hundreds of young men blocked roads with burning tires and rocks in Kericho, a town near Mr Too’s constituency. “Kibaki must go!” they chanted.

Smoke columns rose from smouldering ashes in what remains of the city’s poor Nwagocho and Baraka housing estates where police said they shot and killed four looters and injured five last night and today.