A General Service Unit officer said to have been shot by protesters at Jamia Mosque in Nairobi has died from his injuries.
The officer, who cannot be named because his family has not been informed of his fate, died at the Forces Memorial Hospital on Sunday.
He was one of two officers injured by youths who were rioting on Friday, over the arrest of radical Jamaican preacher Abdullah al-Faisal.
“I can confirm the officer has passed on,” Mr Kiraithe said by phone on Sunday “but we don’t have much to say now since we are still compiling reports on the matter as well as trying to reach the family.”
Another officer, who was hit with a stone on the head, was treated and discharged.
Police said the officer was shot with a pistol by a demonstrator.
An unidentified officer at the time of the riots said the demonstrators were armed adding that one had shot his colleague. One protester was killed in the chaos in which property was also destroyed and sections of the city shut down for hours.
On Sunday, Muslims denied Security minister George Saitoti’s claims that supporters of a Somali extremist group, al-Shabaab, had infiltrated the five-hour protests.
Nairobi Metropolitan Development minister Njeru Githae accused police of not using enough force to stop the violent protests, while a civil society group called for Prof Saitoti’s resignation.
Mr Githae said that at one stage of the protest police appeared like bystanders.
Jamia Mosque chairman Mohamed Osman Warfa claimed their youth were not armed. The allegations that the youth were armed were intended to paint a bad picture of the Muslim community, he said.
“If there were members of the al-Shabaab in the demonstrations, then the police would have arrested them a long time ago,” Mr Warfa said.
Some of the protesters waved a black flag, similar to that of al-Shabaab. The Jamia leaders brushed aside questions about the flag and insisted no one was armed.
Prof Saitoti said the government had received intelligence that the demonstrations would be infiltrated by “violent foreign elements” from a neighbouring country.
“These individuals had planned mayhem... it was supposed to be bigger. Intelligence reports indicate that these individuals were sympathetic to al-Shabaab. It is based on these facts that police declined to issue a permit for the demonstration,” he said.