Sentenced to hang for a crime that he never committed

Richard Musya Mwanzia was wrongly accused of robbing and raping his neighbour. [Photo: File/Standard]

Richard Musya Mwanzia had eight years of his youth stolen by a flawed judicial system that subjected him to mental torture and anguish.

Mwanzia was accused by a neighbour of raping and violently robbing her in early 2005. He was arrested, tried and eventually sentenced to death. He was locked up at Kamiti Maximum Prison. From his dark cell, he thought of the world outside the high prison walls that believed he was guilty of terrible crimes. Yet he wasn’t. He had wrongly been convicted for a crime that he never committed.