(AFP) – Mar 6, 2009

NAIROBI (AFP) — A United Nations investigator called Friday for an independent probe into the assassination of two rights activists who had been at the forefront of a campaign against extrajudicial killings.

Oscar Kamau Kingara, head of the Oscar Foundation rights group, as well as the organisation's advocacy director John Paul Oulu were gunned down Thursday near the University of Nairobi.

The Oscar Foundation published a report two years ago entitled "Licence to Kill: Extrajudicial killings and police brutality in Kenya" that detailed police killings.

Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions who has authored his own report on summary killings in Kenya, called for an independent probe into their deaths.

"It is extremely troubling when those working to defend human rights in Kenya can be assassinated in broad daylight," Alston said in a statement.

Alston's report, which called for the sacking of Kenya's police chief and attorney general, was backed by the Oscar Foundation which had organised nationwide demonstrations demanding its recommendations be implemented.

Alston, who accuses police of carrying out extrajudicial executions on "a regular basis", said the latest killings may vindicate his findings.

"It is imperative, if the Kenya police are to be exonerated, for an independent team called from somewhere like (London's) Scotland Yard or the South African police to investigate," Alston said in his statement.

Kenyan Police Chief Hussein Ali, whom Alston cited in his report as one of the main obstacles to his inquiry, immediately dismissed the idea.

"We will investigate this one with the seriousness it deserves like any other case and it does not, therefore, require that kind of treatment," he said.

US ambassador Michael Ranneberger condemned the killing and called for "immediate, comprehensive and transparent investigation."

"I have offered to the government of Kenya, effective immediately, the services of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said in a statement.

The Daily Nation newspaper quoted students as saying the killings were carried out by assailants all wearing black suits.

"There were four vehicles -- a four-wheel drive vehicle parked inside the campus, a black Mercedes-Benz which carried the assailants, a mini bus and a van all full of men in black suits," the paper said.

After the killing, students from the university of Nairobi then took the bodies and refused to hand them over.

One student was shot dead in the ensuing clash and national police spokesman Eric Kiraithe admitted in a statement to excessive use of force, adding that the arrest of three police offciers had been ordered.

Police also said that more than 100 protestors were arrested on Thursday in Nairobi and several other towns across the country.

The extrajudicial killings probed by Alston in his report were mainly carried out in 2007 during a police crackdown against the Mungiki, an outlawed criminal organisation.

Once a quasi-religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced traditional rituals, the Mungiki were banned in 2002 after evolving into a powerful extortionist gang famous for beheading and skinning its victims.

The Mungiki are also accused of involvement in last year's deadly post-election chaos, acting as an armed wing for the dominant Kikuyu tribe in the tribal clashes that rocked the country.

Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua on Thursday accused the Oscar Foundation -- which has been defend the rights of suspected Mungiki members and their families -- of being funded by the criminal gang.

Amnesty International lashed out at the government for implying structural ties between the NGO and the Mungiki.

"It is unacceptable for the Kenyan government to make statements suggesting that opposition to illegal killings by the police amounts to support for banned groups," said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty's Africa programme director.

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