Nairobi, April 26 Kyodo -- A Kenyan national working for Japan's leading Asahi Shimbun newspaper was shot dead Thursday night in Nairobi in a botched car robbery, police sources said Friday. 
	
	
 Julius Ndegwa, 43, was confronted by a group of armed gangsters around 10 p.m. as he approached his vehicle, which was parked at a sprawling estate east of Nairobi, the police said. 
	
	
 Eyewitnesses said the robbers shot Ndegwa in the chest after he resisted their attempts to snatch his car keys. He was rushed to hospital by bystanders, but died before arrival. 
	
	
 "They shot at him as he tried to open the door to the car, and died on arrival to a nearby hospital," a senior policewoman, Chief Inspector Nancy Thuku, told Kyodo News in Nairobi. 
	
	
 Ndegwa joined the Asahi Shimbun's Nairobi Bureau in 1989 as a driver assigned to the bureau chief, and also worked as the assistant to the bureau chief. He was the official driver of Nairobi Bureau Chief Shingo Egi at the time of his death. 
	
	
 He leaves behind a wife and four children. 
	
	
 A senior police officer was shot dead two months ago by armed gangsters in the same crime-prone area where Ndegwa was killed.