Oscar Kamau Kingara was a Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

n lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 and human rights activist. Kingara was the founder

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 and director of the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic, a human rights organization based in Nairobi

Nairobi

Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...

. His 2009 assassination is widely attributed to his work in documenting police killings.

Human rights work

Kingara was credited with an important role in investigative work behind police killings in Kenya. In 2008, he released a report accusing Kenyan police of killing or torturing more than 8,000 people as part of a crackdown on the Mungiki

Mungiki

Mungiki is a politico-religious group and a banned criminal organization in Kenya. The name means "A united people" or "multitude" in the Kikuyu language. The religion, which apparently originated in the late 1980s, is secretive and bears some similarity to mystery religions. Specifics of their...

 criminal organization. Another report to which Kingara made major contributions, The Cry of Blood — Report on Extra-Judicial Killings and Disappearances was widely publicised by WikiLeaks

Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...

.

Assassination

On March 5, 2009, Kingara and his assistant, John Paul Oulu

John Paul Oulu

John Paul Oulu was a Kenyan human rights activist and former Students Union official at the University of Nairobi. His 2009 assassination is widely attributed to his work in documenting police killings.-Human rights work:...

, were ambushed and shot as they sat in rush hour

Rush hour

A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening, the times during when the most people commute...

 traffic in a white Mercedes

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...

 outside of the University of Nairobi

University of Nairobi

The University of Nairobi is the largest university in Kenya. Although its history as an educational institution goes back to 1956, it did not become an independent university until 1970 when the University of East Africa was split into three independent universities: Makerere University in...

 dormitories. Kingara was killed instantly while Oulu died soon after the attack. The three gunmen, who were dressed in dark suits, escaped in two cars. Critics quickly pointed to elements with the Kenyan security forces and police as responsible for the assassinations. Following the assassination, WikiLeaks called for witness reports and described Kingara and Oulu as "Wikileaks-related senior human rights activists". Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga

Raila Odinga

Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...

 condemned the killings saying, "We are hurtling towards failure as a state."

Kingara was survived by his wife, Nancy Kamau, and their two children. He was 38 years old. Kingara was buried at his family's home in Kiambu

Kiambu

Kiambu is a town in Central Province, Kenya. It is located at around , in the elevation of about 1,720 m. It has an urban population of 13,814. It is the capital of the Kiambu District, which bounds the northern border of Nairobi...

, Central Province

Central Province (Kenya)

Kenya's Central Province covers an area of 13,191 km² and is located to north of Nairobi and west of Mt. Kenya. The province had 4,383,743 inhabitants according to the 2009 census...

.