Nairobi, July 4 (Reuters) – Gangsters wielding AK-47s hijacked the Kenyan trade minister, stealing a gun, cash, and mobile phones in the latest high-profile crime in a city dubbed “Nairobbery” for its chronic insecurity, local media said.
Mukhisa Kituyi was driving home late evening on Monday when four men in a saloon car blocked his official four-wheel-drive car in Nairobi’s posh Westlands area.
The heavily armed men ordered him and his bodyguard into the back seat, and drove around for a while before releasing them close to the city centre, the local KTN TV network and Capital FM radio station said.
Neither was injured, but Kituyi was robbed of two mobile phones and some cash while the bodyguard’s gun was taken.
Police, who declined to comment on the incident, found the car abandoned in a low-income housing estate on Tuesday morning, the Kenyan broadcasters said.
Armed hijackings and robberies are common in the sprawling Kenyan capital of 3,5 million people, which nervous foreign visitors nicknamed “Nairobbery” long ago.
Kituyi, who was unavailable for comment, is not the first member of President Mwai Kibaki’s government to feel the effect of crime first-hand.
In 2003, then water minister Martha Karua and a Catholic priest were hijacked in a similar manner.
Other recent high-profile crime victims have been the Danish ambassador and the wife of Kenya’s former army chief of staff.
Source: Reuters, July 4, 2006
