By Wangui Kanina NAIROBI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Kenyan police gunned down the country's most-wanted gangster on Tuesday in an aggressive response to the public outcry over a murder wave that claimed a top AIDS researcher and the wife of a U.S. embassy official. Police said they believe Simon Matheri Ikere, 30, led a gang of thugs behind an audacious spree of mostly daytime robberies and killings that have shaken the east African nation's capital, where residents have long been victimised by violent crime. More than 100 police officers raided the home of Matheri's estranged wife in Athi River, 25 km (15.5 miles) southeast of the capital, where he had taken refuge only to be betrayed by his mobile phone -- which police tracked via satellite. "We got him at 2:30 a.m. in his home in Athi River. There was a shootout but we got him," Nairobi police boss Njue Njagi told Reuters. He later told reporters Matheri's accomplices were next. "We know who they are and they are not safe." Television footage showed Matheri, who had a bounty of 150,000 Kenya shillings ($2,161) on his head, lying dead clad only in blue shorts with an AK-47 assault rifle nearby. His wife and children were in the half-built house. Police said an accomplice identified only as "M" was also shot dead. Matheri died like other infamous gangsters in Kenya's recent history -- killed by police who take no prisoners where heavily armed criminals are concerned. Njagi said investigators found 26 rounds of ammunition in the house, where Matheri's estranged wife Felister Wanjiru lived with their six children. Wanjiru told KTN television she had asked Matheri, who was hiding in her bedroom, to surrender. "I pleaded with him to leave the house, because the police were saying there is a thief here and they will burn down the house if he did not get out," a shaken Wanjiru told KTN, clutching a coughing infant. "I told him 'please come out because of the children.'" SPECIAL EDITION The killing prompted the Standard newspaper to issue a special edition on Tuesday emblazoned with the headline "Matheri Killed." It followed weeks of blaring headlines about a city under the grip of deadly criminals. The wave of cold-blooded killings over the last three months have rung alarm bells and the U.S. State Department warned Americans about the dangers of visiting Kenya. Most of the more than 50 people killed over the last three months were Kenyans and more than a dozen police have been killed in and around the city ruefully known as "Nairobbery" where carjacking, armed robberies and burglaries are common. Police spokesman Gideon Kibunjah said Matheri and his gang were thought to be behind the killings of top AIDS researcher Job Bwayo and American missionaries Lois Anderson and her daughter Zelda White, who is married to a U.S. embassy official. But Kibunjah cautioned police had no specific evidence linking Matheri to the deaths. The crime wave has pressured President Mwai Kibaki's government to deal decisively with the flare-up. Internal Security Minister John Michuki, a provincial administrator in the colonial era whose nickname is Kimeendero or "Crusher" in his native Kikuyu language, last year ordered police to shoot armed criminals on sight. Human rights activists say police have been overzealous in implementing Michuki's order, but many Kenyans tired of living in fear often cheer when police kill vicious criminals. In Matheri's home village in western Nairobi, TV footage showed residents celebrating the death of a man whose reputation put him around every corner, waiting to kill those who spoke against him. The longstanding Kenyan frustration with crime and what many see as ineffective policing often manifests itself in lethal vigilante justice meted out on criminals caught in the act. (Additional reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)
