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Kenya: Anti-terrorism minister George Saitoti killed in copter crash
Kenya’s internal security minister, who was closely involved in the fight against Somali militant group Al-Shabaab, was killed when the police helicopter he was travelling in crashed into a forest on Sunday.
Saitoti, 66, was a candidate in next year’s presidential election and a key figure driving his country’s fight against Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab insurgents in neighbouring Somalia.
Saitoti was killed along with Joshua Orwa Ojonde, the assistant minister for internal security, the two pilots, and two bodyguards when the helicopter came down in the Ngong hills outside the capital.
President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga paid tribute to Saitoti, who played a prominent role in the campaign against Somali insurgents, blamed for a series of terror attacks and kidnappings on Kenyan soil.
Saitoti was on his way to attend a religious ceremony in western Kenya when the Eurocopter came down in the Kibuku forest around 8:30 am (0130 EST) shortly after taking off from Nairobi’s Wilson airport.
An AFP journalist on the scene saw six bodies charred beyond recognition being removed from the wreckage. The helicopter was entirely destroyed.
A witness at the scene described the helicopter as having “hovered up there and looked like it was turning back” before coming down.
As internal security minister, Saitoti controlled the state’s top investigative arms, the National Security Intelligence Service and the Criminal Investigations Department.
Kenya sent thousands of troops into southern Somalia in October last year to fight the Al-Shabaab and protect its border. It has since been joined by other regional powers in a bid to rout the Islamist group from their strongholds in the south and centre of the country.
It was Saitoti who made the first public announcement of the invasion, a full two days after Kenyan troops crossed the border.
Several people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in border areas, and a bomb in a Nairobi shopping centre last month wounded 38 people. Saitoti declared recently that the government would not be cowed by “terrorists”.
Saitoti had announced that he was standing as a candidate to succeed Kibaki in the 2013 presidential election.
A former finance minister, he was vice-president in the administration of Daniel Arap Moi from 1989-1997 and again from 1999-2002.
Copyright 2012 AFP.