Three Kenyan police have been suspended, officials said on Friday after pictures allegedly showed them firing three gunmen on a busy street in downtown Nairobi.
The largest newspaper in Kenya, the Daily Nation published the photos Thursday. He says they were taken by a motorist at the scene of the shootout in the capital.
The first image shows a man described by the document as an undercover police officer pointing a gun at two men lying on the road.
Another shows two men filled with bullets and lying in the street. A third shooting apparently took place, the paper said.
A spokesman for the police confirmed that three men were killed and three policemen were suspended pending an investigation. "They (the leaders) are innocent until proven guilty, we must not forget that," Eric Kiraithe said by telephone from Nairobi. "We are investigating and want quick results."
Kiraithe said that victims have criminal records, and another a policeman wounded in a shooting last week.
"That said, they have their rights as human beings, of course, does not justify his death," he said.
Killings sparked condemnation of the national groups and human rights renewing calls for reforms in the Kenyan police.
The trio was in compliance and had already made, "said Amnesty International in a press release.
A 2009 report by the United Nations have accused Kenyan police of abusing his power and called for the abolition of the country's police commissioner at the time.
"Killings by police in Kenya are widespread, systematic and carefully planned. They committed themselves at will and with impunity," said UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston said in a statement.
The Kenyan government said it has rejected the results.