CALM RETURNS

Commissioner of Prisons, Isaiah Osugo, has asked prison warders at Naivasha GK Prison to be calm, as investigations into the shooting of their colleague by police continue.

Speaking during a visit to the prison Thursday evening, Osugo said his office was working together with the police department to diffuse tension between the two groups, following the shooting.

"We have incorporated all the Criminal Investigation Department and Human Rights groups in the investigations so that the truth can come out, but for now I appeal for calm as we await to know the truth about this murder," he said

Calm has returned to the correctional facility following a stand off between the two forces over the killing.

Julius Wafula Sirengo, a prison warder at the penal institution shot dead at South Lake area on Wednesday, and a ceska pistol recovered from him.

The police claimed the slain warder was in the group of thugs who had earlier shot dead a highway patrol officer in Naivasha and made away with his car.

The suspects were later cornered at Ruaka on the outskirts of Nairobi where four were shot dead. Two bystanders are also said to have been killed by stray bullets.

The warders accused police of tarnishing their name as none of the suspects killed in Ruaka was a colleague as claimed.

The warders say the police action amounted to extra-judicial killing.

Police however, stood their ground insisting that the warder was part of the gang adding that a Ceska pistol had been recovered from him.

The officer in charge of the prison Patrick Mwenda accused police of cold blooded murder saying he had earlier been informed by a senior CID officer that police had arrested a warder in connection with the killing of the highway patrol officer.

A standoff between police officers and prison warders paralyzed operations at the Prison facility as the latter blocked police officers from taking remandees from courts back to the prison.

Remandees from court were denied entry into the prison, forcing the police to take them to the police station.

Operations at that facility are back to normal.