Condemned: Death Row in Kenya There hasn’t been an execution in Kenya since 1. Some inmates are strolling lazily about the compound while others are seated on the luscious green grass chatting, enjoying the cool breeze. Most are in the standard striped black and white uniform but a few, like Beatrice, who are here for capital offences, are donning green, free flowing dresses with small pockets at the chests. Beatrice is average height – about 5- foot- 2. Her hair is neatly made up in cornrows that meet at the top of her head. But the one feature that catches my eye is her dimpled smile, which makes the corners of her eyes crinkle – a sweet, almost childlike, smile. Supporters of preserving California’s death penalty in next month’s elections showcase the relatives of murder victims, who say their only hope of justice and closure is the killers’ execution. Death penalty opponents. Rocking out after a hefty hiatus, Condemned? They produced some of the most brutal old-school crossover metal/punk to hit the. Behind Beatrice is a barbed wire fence and beyond it a small group of women is gathering for an afternoon church service. I ask about the sentence she is serving, and Beatrice looks directly at me – not for one second does her gaze waver – as she says, “I killed my fianc. But it was almost midnight and he hadn’t been answering her calls and she knew for a fact that he’d left work hours earlier. Opening the flimsy sitting room curtain, she peered out but all she could see was the pitch black night. She eased herself onto the threadbare couch and decided to wait for him. At 1. 7, the heavily pregnant girl was fresh faced and, having tied her braids at the base of her neck, she looked even younger than her years. When she saw the lock on the door turn, she was filled with relief – Mark was finally home. But she noticed that something was wrong as he staggered into the room. Mark’s face was contorted in anger, a rare expression as he was mostly a pleasant man. Beatrice tentatively approached him only to be thrown against the wall, where she bumped her knee. As she began to stand, Mark picked up a knife that had been lying on the table near the door and threw it at her. She turned just in time for it to miss her stomach and slice her right arm. Beatrice was confused and angry at the unsolicited attack. She picked up the knife, lunged herself at Mark and stabbed him above his left collarbone. Mark grabbed her throat and started squeezing. Beatrice aimed the knife at his stomach, where she stabbed him several times. Mark let go, falling to the ground with blood spurting from the wound on his neck. As he writhed in pain and bled out in front of her, Beatrice backed up to a corner where she sat and watched as he took his last breath. After this, for months, everything was a blur – up until the judge’s gavel came down, sentencing her to death. And that’s how she found herself at Langata Women’s Prison, where she is currently on death row. There are thousands of inmates like Beatrice in Kenya. Even though the courts continue to issue the death penalty on a daily basis, the last execution was 2. This creates a strange limbo for the condemned men and women who live for years on death row – it’s a difficult thing to know that you could be taken away and killed if the government ever decides to put the sentence into practice again. Background“Murder, treason, robbery with violence, attempted robbery with violence and administering an oath to commit a capital offence gets the death sentence,” says retired Justice Robert Mugo Mutitu. By Kenyan law, armed robbery carries a mandatory death sentence — whether one is wielding a machine gun or a stick. Peter Harold Poole, in December 1. Kenyan to be sentenced to death and hanged after shooting his houseboy, whom he’d found throwing stones at his dog. On the morning of May 1. Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Okumu Oteyo, the two men behind the 1. Kenyan government suspended the death penalty. The current constitution, however, still retains provisions for it. An emotive issue, capital punishment divides opinion around the world, and Kenya is no exception. Should the death penalty be our highest form of punishment, or should something else take its place? If it is not going to be carried out, why maintain it in the current constitution? These are the enormous questions with huge implications for the country. Kirugumi wa Wanjiku was Kenya’s last hangman. Having worked in King’ong’o and Kamiti Prisons for a total of 1. Wanjiku was a tall, dark, thin man, who always – even in sweltering heat – wore a trench coat. He believed that former President Mwai Kibaki’s move to commute the sentences of death row inmates to life sentences was a step in the wrong direction.“How will the victims’ families feel knowing that the men who took the lives of their loved ones had been spared from suffering a similar fate to the one they were dealt?” he once told NTV, a leading Kenyan TV station, during an interview before his passing away in 2. The executions used to be carried out between 4 and 5am. Wanjiku summoned the convict from his cell, tied his hands behind his back and escorted him to the wooden execution platform. Once there, he’d bind the prisoner’s ankles and place a hood over his head. Finally, he’d toss the rope over the convict’s neck and a lever would be pulled to open the trap beneath his feet. Table of contents the death of pilate, who condemned jesus.1 the death of pilate, who condemned jesus. Define condemn: to say in a strong. City officials condemned our apartment building and forced us to leave. Online shopping from a great selection at Digital Music Store. Watch videos & listen free to Condemned To Death: Gartlands Pit, D-Day & more. Discover more music, concerts, videos, and pictures with the largest catalogue online at Last.fm. The prisoner would bolt downwards, instantly snapping his neck. Executions took place in the presence of a doctor to certify that the convict was of sound mind, a priest, and the commissioner of the prison or his deputy. After bringing him down, the convict would be buried in an unmarked grave inside the prison’s compound, a change from the colonial period when convicts were buried in mass graves. At times he was the one waiting to be hanged in his dreams, feeling the noose around his neck. The hangman never revealed the number of people he’d led to the gallows, but even after his death, and with no one to replace him, more Kenyans are being sentenced to death every year. Ticket to Death Row. Mzito grew up in a slum in Kiambiu. He was an only child to a single mother who sold groceries. Kiambiu, for the non- dweller, is not an area you’d want to walk in once the sun bows out for the day. For those who live there, they’re lucky if their houses have corrugated iron roofs that don’t leak when it rains. But most houses are made of mud – some with skeletal- looking walls whose wooden frames peak from beneath earthen surfaces. Windows are shuttered with wood or just transparent plastic bags nailed on the walls. The area breeds gangs and has one of the highest crime rates in Nairobi. Mzito’s first successful pick- pocketing job was at the age of 1. By 1. 7, craving more, he moved from Kiambiu, joined a gang and held his first gun. He was a fast learner and quickly earned his nickname – Mzito being Kiswahili for heavy, as in heavy hitter. By the time he was 2. Kayole, Nairobi, an equally violent slum to the one he’d come from. It protected you,” shares the now 3. Kamiti for the past 1. We are seated on the grass and Mzito, who’s folded his legs beneath him, picks a blade and starts chewing on it. His hair is as unkempt as the scruffy, short beard he’s trying to grow.“My luck ran out 1. Kariobangi South.” Everything had been going according to plan, but when one of the shop’s attendants panicked and tried to run out, Mzito shot her in the thigh. The Flying Squad police, who’d been in the vicinity, rushed to the area and found Mzito and his fellow gang members escaping on foot. And the prisons keep piling up with inmates like Mzito who, as things stand, seem likely to either die in prison or have their sentences reduced by the president of Kenya. Beatrice shifts from one foot to the other. It’s clear that she’s growing impatient – she will be late for the service if I keep her a minute longer. Grace Mumbi led a colourful life prior to being locked up. Mumbi, however, never lifted a finger to anyone while she led the sect. I haven’t killed with my hands, but hundreds have died due to the commands I gave.”Now I get why Beatrice directed me to Mumbi – despite that self assesment, the former Mungiki member is only serving 1. The breeze picks up as she walks briskly to catch up with her friends, and I’m left to wonder what makes her crime smaller than Beatrice’s. A few months ago, when I first came to Langata Women’s Prison, I met Mokeira, the first death row inmate I ever spoke with. At 1. 6, Mokeira was na. When a relative got her a job as a maid in Nairobi’s South B, she was exhilarated. Mokeira loved her job. Months into it, she met Dan Karuga, a charmer and owner of a garbage collection business. He swept her off her feet. Little by little, Mokeira began feeding Karuga information regarding her employers, information that she insists was not knowingly intended to result in a crime, just simple things like their occupations and the times they left and came back home. During the attack, the lady of the house was shot in her right shoulder and her husband died instantly when the attackers shot him in the head. Led by Karuga, they didn’t get far with their loot and once in custody quickly gave up Mokeira as the person who’d given them information on the household. She was charged with aiding and abetting armed gangsters, found guilty was sentenced to death. Waiting to Die. Mzito today woke up at 6am, and after the head count a guard opened his cell door. He made quick work of a shower, a chore he typically skips, before going for breakfast, which is usually a cup of maize flour porridge. Lunch, which he’d had just before I arrived, was two leaves of kale, a potato and a cup of ugali. Dinner, a cup of beans and ugali, won’t be an elaborate affair either, but once a week the ugali is replaced with rice, and every prisoner is assured a piece of meat three times a week. Mzito, as with all other death row inmates, doesn’t do manual work like other prisoners. Mzito’s cell is next to the execution chamber, where Pancras, the leader of the coup, and many others before him were put to death. Sleeping next to the execution chamber is torture, an everyday reminder of where my life will end.” Even after a decade in prison, sleep is hard to come by for Mzito who, most nights, finds himself staring at the execution chamber’s walls till morning.
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