A murderer who admits killing up to 400 people – many in bloody machete attacks – is living in the UK after being granted asylum.
John Thuo has been living in a taxpayer funded home since sneaking in illegally from Africa in 2003, and his neighbours are totally oblivious to his grisly past.
For seven years he worked for the Mungiki in Kenya, a criminal mob behind some of the continent’s worst atrocities.
Thuo, 27, admitted at an immigration tribunal to killing “about 100 to 400 people”.
He even said he had taken part in the sickening practice of female genital mutilation.
But despite many attempts to boot him out, Thuo remains here, claiming deportation is against his human rights as he will be killed by the gang on his return.
British police are not monitoring him or even investigating his crimes.
After we tracked him down, Thuo said: “It’s true, I killed a lot of people. I don’t like talking about my past.
“I feel guilty for what I’ve done. I feel remorse.
“I’ve started a new life here and I’m looking for regular work. If I go back they’ll kill me. They’ll behead me.”
Asked if he is monitored by the Home Office, he said: “No, I don’t have to meet anyone. I’m free.
“My life in Kenya is in the past. It’s a different world out there. Out there, all you can do is hope to survive. This is a better place to live.”
Thuo has been living rent-free in accommodation provided by the National Asylum Support Service.
The killer has worked as a removal man but receives £160 a month in pocket money through benefits provided by the NASS.
One neighbour in suburban Coventry said: “He’s quite a big drinker.
“He’ll buy bottles of vodka and get drunk. When he does that he gets aggressive. He doesn’t talk about his past much.
“I had no idea about him killing all those people. It’s terrifying really. There’s a lot of children who live in this street.
“There’s a Mr Whippy ice cream van that parks outside his house. The children line up along the fence to his garden.”
The Home Office has tried to deport Thuo in a series of hearings but it has been unsuccessful.
This is despite Thuo telling an immigration court in London he was a senior member of the Mungiki in the Kariobangi slum of Nairobi, after joining when he was just 10 years old.
The Mungiki recruit child members and Thuo’s first job for the gang was to spy on people who were selling illegal alcohol in the poorest areas.
In 2000 he was promoted to leader, training members and taking control of the Korogocho slum where he ran a security racket.
In evidence he said he “attacked police and stole their ammunition”.
He also admitted his gang “torched people’s houses” and carried out female circumcision and public intimidation.
In 2002 he took part in a revenge attack on villagers who had killed two members of the Mungiki. He butchered two civilians with a machete.
In another incident he said he killed two police officers after members of the gang were arrested, one with a machete and another with a “big stone”.
The Mungiki – part gang, part religious sect – were outlawed in Kenya in 2002 following widespread outrage at their horrific crimes, in which victims were left as mutilated corpses.
Members are required to take secret oaths and the mobsters are linked to political violence and extortion.
They engage in fraud, robbery, murder and kidnap. It is also thought members drink the blood of their victims.
The Mungiki emerged as a major force in Kenya in the 1980s.
Initially they were a peaceful protest movement in which followers wore dreadlocks, but the group transformed into one of the most feared organised crime organisations in the capital, Nairobi.
Some defectors claim there are millions of members.
The mafia-like gangsters control public transport routes and provide illegal water and electricity connections to hundreds of makeshift shacks in some impoverished slums.
Residents also have to pay them a levy to access communal toilets and for overnight security to protect them.
Elinah Kakmega, 33, lost two brothers in a Mungiki machete attack in Nairobi 10 years ago, at the time Thuo was active.
She said: “They pounced on my brothers in the street outside our home and tore their bodies apart with their weapons.
“When they were found their bodies had been hacked apart.
“The men were like a pack of wild animals. If John Thuo admits his part in attacks like this he should be brought to justice.
“It is terrible that he has been able to enjoy a new life in Britain while we suffer here every day.”
Thuo arrived here as an illegal immigrant in August 2003. He kept his identity a secret until he needed the help of the NHS for mental health problems.
In March the Immigration and Asylum Chamber granted his appeal under the Human Rights Act against being removed from the UK, after an expert gave evidence the Mungiki were known to behead members who tried to flee.
The judge also took into consideration Thuo’s mental health, and threats he would kill himself if he was deported.
He has now been granted indefinite leave to stay in the UK, but he will have to apply for an extension in three years.
Senior Labour MP Paul Flynn said: “This case is one of the worst I have seen.
“It has been proven time and time again that the immigration system has some serious problems.
“Laws which were created in good faith are being used and abused by criminals and this is something which has to stop.
“It is extremely worrying that someone who has admitted to killing so many people is not being investigated by the police in this country.
“And it is even more worrying he is able to successfully claim asylum despite what he says he has done.”
A spokesman for Aegis Trust, which campaigns to prevent crimes against humanity worldwide, said: “Anyone suspected of international crimes should be held to account.
“We would call for a further investigation of this extremely concerning matter by the authorities.”
In 2007, Mungiki followers were accused of a series of gruesome murders in Central Province, in what was said to be a revenge attack on people who had leaked information to the police about their activities.
And two years ago six Kenyans accused of being members faced charges at the International Criminal Court over ethnic violence that brought the country to the brink of civil war in 2008.
At the time, a former Mungiki mobster said in a statement to the court in The Hague: “If a member disobeys, they would cut that member’s head off and put the head in public view at the place where they had a problem with the member.”
Last night a spokesman for the Home Office said of Thuo: “We cannot comment on individual cases.
Thuo is one of several shocking examples the Mirror has found of murderers
and suspected terrorists abusing the Human Rights Act to delay deportation.
Mohamed Salim is a soldier from Sudan who claimed he killed “countless” women and children during ethnic cleansing.
Granted asylum despite his crimes, the Home Office claimed he was being strictly monitored in the UK.
But when we tracked him down to a house in Birmingham, West Brom supporter Salim said he “couldn’t remember” the last time he met with a Border Agency official.
Scotland Yard also claim to be investigating 27-year-old Salim but no arrests have been made.
The Mirror also revealed the case of an Iraqi national with links to al-Qaeda. Once under a control order as a threat to national security, an anonymity order prevents us from naming him, or the alleged terror ring he is linked with. His lawyers argued he would be killed or tortured in Iraq if returned.
In another case we found one of Robert Mugabe’s henchmen has landed a top NHS job.
The 36-year-old, believed to have worked with state torturers and killers, used Article 3 – the right to no torture or degrading treatment – to win a three-year legal battle to stay in the UK.
A Chinese “snakehead” gangster with convictions for kidnapping and blackmail also beat deportation this year. Lawyers for Tsai Wang Chen, 39, argued deportation would have a “devastating” effect on him.
Source: mirror.co.uk
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