Kenyan minister killed in helicopter crash

Nairobi, Kenya – Kenyan police and government officials say Interior Minister George Saitoti is among at least six people killed in a police helicopter crash early Sunday, near the capital, Nairobi.

Authorities say an assistant and a bodyguard of Saitoti were also killed in the crash in the Ngong hills area.

Saitoti was a former Vice-President, who planned to run for president in next year’s March election.

The identity of the other victims has not been confirmed. Some witnesses say the bodies are burned beyond recognition.

The accident occurred on Sunday in the Ngong hills on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, a police source told AFP, adding that the reason for the crash was not immediately clear.

A Reuters photographer counted three charred bodies at the scene of the crash and more people were feared to have been on board the helicopter.

Saitoti, who was a long-serving vice president under the former President Daniel Arap Moi, was also a presidential candidate in an election expected to be held by March next year.

Saitoti, an ally of President Mwai Kibaki, was the leading government voice against armed Somali group al-Shabaab. He often visited the scenes of grenade attacks inside Kenya and had vowed that Kenya would crush the group.

Kenya’s troops have been fighting al-Shabaab in neighbouring Somalia since last October. The Somali group have killed several people in a string of grenade attacks in Nairobi, the far north and the coast in retaliation to Kenya’s moves against them.

Source: Agencies / www.timesofearth.com