By DPA
Nairobi : A Kenyan opposition legislator was shot dead Thursday, the second to be killed in less than a week as the country’s post-election violence spiralled, the police said.
Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said the man was shot as he was leaving a hotel with a female police constable in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, some 300 km northwest of the capital Nairobi, and was pronounced dead at hospital. The woman was seriously injured.
The opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) confirmed the victim’s name as David Too and charged that the incident was politically motivated, coming just as negotiations between the opposition and the government over disputed polls kicked off in Nairobi.
“This second execution of an ODM MP within four days is part of the plot to reduce the number of MPs in parliament,” said Raila Odinga, the leader of ODM, which won 99 out of 210 seats in last month’s parliamentary vote.
Kiraithe said a police officer suspected of shooting the pair was charged with murder and is set to appear in court.
Witnesses in Kisumu, an opposition stronghold on the shores of Lake Victoria in the west, said hundreds of youth poured onto the streets as the news of Too’s death broke.
“They heard about (the killing), then they just started fighting all over the place, throwing stones at anyone and at cars,” said Omari Onyancha, a taxi driver in Kenya’s third largest city.
Melitus Mugabe Were, another opposition legislator, was shot dead earlier this week sparking fresh violence by opposition supporters nationwide.
ODM called Were’s death a “political assassination” but the police are treating it as a murder.
More than 800 people have been killed in Kenya’s crisis and some 250,000 displaced in what has marked a disturbing change in the country seen as a beacon of stability in a volatile region.