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FBI offers to probe Kenya MP
killings: US embassy
01.02.2008
NAIROBI (AFP) - The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has offered
to probe the killings of two Kenyan opposition lawmakers that
sparked fresh rioting after weeks of political unrest, the US
embassy said Friday.
The offer was made through the embassy on January 29 after the
fatal shooting that morning of the first MP, Melitus Mugabe Were,
in the capital Nairobi, said embassy spokesman Thomas Dowling.
"I can confirm that we did put forward the offer after the killing
of the first MP," he said.
"But now the offer stands for the two killings," he said after
another opposition lawmaker, David Kimutai Too, was shot dead
Thursday in the western Kenya town of Eldoret. Police said the
second killing, in which a female policewoman was also shot dead,
appeared to be a crime of passion.
Dowling said the embassy had not received any response.
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua declined to comment, but said
the government welcomed any help to unravel recent killings in the
wake of weeks of ethnic clashes and rioting sparked by the
disputed reelection of President Mwai Kibaki in December.
"The government of Kenya welcomes any support that will help
unravel who was behind the ethnic cleansing that we have witnessed,"
Mutua told AFP.
Opposition chief Raila Odinga pressed the government to accept the
US offer, accusing Kenyan police of incompetence.
"We now want the government to invite the FBI to come and expedite
the investigations of the two MPs killed by assassins. The Kenya
police have failed because they have already jumped to conclusions,"
Odinga told reporters.
Members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe suffered heavily in the first
wave of post-election violence at the hands of Odinga's Luo tribe
and other ethnic groups, but have since carried out numerous
revenge attacks.
Odinga earlier said the two MP killings were "part of a plot" to
reduce his Orange Democratic Movement's (ODM) majority in
parliament.
The ODM secured 99 seats in the legislative elections that
coincided with the presidential poll on December 27, making it the
largest single party but short of an overall majority. Kibaki's
Party of National Unity (PNU) won 43 seats.
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