Kenyan police seize weapons cache

December 09, 2009|Associated Press

NAIROBI - Kenyan police said yesterday that they arrested a suspected weapons smuggler with up to 100,000 bullets and an assortment of guns, a huge cache in a country with stringent gun laws.

Police recovered the weapons and ammunition in two raids carried out late Monday on the suspect’s house in the capital, Nairobi, and on a business site in the western town of Narok, Police Commissioner Matthew Iteere said.

Ever since violent clashes killed more than 1,000 people following Kenya’s 2007 presidential election, human rights groups have said that the communities that fought the 2007-2008 conflict with machetes, bows, and arrows were arming themselves with military-grade weapons in anticipation of possible conflict during the country’s 2012 election.

The recovery Monday of such a large cache of munitions may lend credence to the allegations, which the government has dismissed, though Iteere said it was too early in the investigation to speculate what the weapons were meant for.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan, who helped negotiate an end to the election violence and who was in Kenya yesterday, said he had heard such reports but has seen no evidence communities were arming themselves for future conflict.

Police found two pistols and four rifles, along with shooting targets, large hunting knives, and military uniforms, Iteere said.

Kenya has stringent gun laws, and obtaining a license is difficult. Applicants undergo several interviews and background checks. Despite the precautions, hundreds of illegal guns are smuggled into Kenya through porous borders.

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