NAIROBI, Kenya
Kenya has over the years featured in international news because of the high-profile murders, with the fatal shooting of renowned Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif adding to the string of killings.
The killing of Mr Sharif comes
hot on the heels of the deepening mystery surrounding the disappearance of two
Indian nationals – Zulfiqar
Ahmad Khan and Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai – who were kidnapped in
Nairobi and whose whereabouts have not been known since July this year.
According to the police, Mr
Sharif – who died on the spot under a hail of bullets sprayed by the General
Service Unit (GSU) police officers from Magadi Training School – was killed in
a case of mistaken identity. Reports said he was a passenger in a moving
vehicle after it failed to stop at a police roadblock.
He died around 9pm on Sunday
as he was being driven by his friend, Mr Kurram Ahmed.
The disappearance of the two Indians has been blamed on the disbanded crack police squad known as the Special Service Unit (SSU). The two were reported to have arrived in Kenya in April to join President William Ruto’s digital campaign team. They went missing on July 25 after they were abducted outside Ole Sereni Hotel along Mombasa Road.
The list of high-profile mystery deaths in Kenya also includes that of Julie Ward in September 1988.
Ms Ward, a publishing
assistant, disappeared on September 7, 1988 from her campsite at the Masai Mara
game reserve.
A week later, her charred and
mutilated remains were found at Makari area in the reserve. Ms Ward had left
Suffolk, UK, for a seven-month trip to Kenya.
Although she had been raped
and hacked to death, and her body doused in petrol and burned, the Kenyan authorities
refused to conduct an inquiry.
Initially, they insisted that she had either committed suicide or been killed by wild animals, but the court would rule in October 1989 that Ms Ward was murdered.
The American Mill Hill
missionary priest had had several run-ins with the government since the 1992
elections.
In 1994, when the Daniel arap
Moi administration was forcibly closing down a displacement camp in Maela,
Ngong, Father Kaiser protested, leading to his arrest, beating, and release
into the bush by the police.
After the 1997 polls, the priest
appeared before the Justice Akilano Akiwumi Commission in 1998, where he linked
several serving government officials to electoral violence.
In 1999, he assisted two girls
who had accused a Moi government Cabinet minister of rape. In November of that
year, he briefly went into hiding in Kisii after the government tried to deport
him.
It took the intervention of
then-US Ambassador Johnnie Carson for him to be granted a new work permit.
Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) investigators called in by the Kenyan government concluded
that the priest had committed suicide.
There was also the dramatic
capture and arrest of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) in 1999. Turkey’s most wanted man, who had been staying at the
Greek Embassy in Nairobi for a while, was waylaid by Turkish officials as he planned
to leave Kenya for the Netherlands with his bodyguards.
At the Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport, Mr Öcalan boarded a private jet that he thought had been
sent from the Netherlands for his transportation. Little did he know that the
plane's final destination was Turkey.
He would be handcuffed and
blindfolded after getting onboard before being deported to Turkey, where he was
sentenced to death. However, it was later commuted to life in prison.
In June 2021, 55-year-old
Dutch businessman Herman
Rouwenhorst was found murdered in his apartment in Mombasa after an
alleged kidnapping.
He was found dead in his bed
with his hands and feet tied and his mouth gagged. An injured bodyguard found
at the residence later succumbed to his wounds.
In August 2017, the bodies of
a Swiss couple were found dumped by the roadside in Mombasa with their bodies
wrapped in a blanket.
The bodies had severe
injuries. One had deep cuts on the head. Police said it seemed they were killed
using sharp and blunt objects.
In 2014, Russian and German
tourists were robbed and murdered in Mombasa in two separate incidents. -
Nation
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