Students Vow to Hold Demo Over Killed Colleague

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Gideon Keter

28 June 2011

University of Nairobi student leaders have given the police 72 hours to arrest all the culprits behind the murder of their fellow student. Speaking at the university, the Students Organisation of Nairobi University chairman Babu Owino said the police were taking too long to unravel the cause and the circumstances that led to Mercy Keino’s death.

He demanded that police commissioner Mathew Iteere resigns accusing him of incompetence. “There was no blood at the scene of incident, a black Mercedes Benz was seen dropping the body of the girl. The police are appalling in their incompetence and we demand that either they investigate and prosecute the culprits or the police commissioner resigns,” Owino said.

The students said if the police will not have arrested those who planned the party the girl is said to have attended prior to her death, then they will hold peaceful demonstrations.

The students claimed the number of colleagues killed in mysterious circumstances is on the rise. They said in about four months, up to six students have died.

They want the Parliamentary Committee on Security to start an inquiry into the high number of students of the university who have just been disappearing. “It has become the norm for the University of Nairobi students to be murdered in cold blood by malicious members of public. A case in point is the murder of engineering student by guards at a night club. To date the culprits have not been brought to book,” Owino said.

Mercy Keino was a post-graduate journalism student at the University of Nairobi. She and a friend are said to have gone to a night party in Westlands hours before her body was found dumped along Waiyaki Way.

Keino’s classmates said she was a born again Christian. They rubbished claims that she might have been hit by a motorist while drunk, saying she never drank alcohol.

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