Inmates plead with State to abolish death penalty in Kenya

Morris Kaberia, a former police officer currently serving a death sentence in Kamiti prisons during an Interview with The Standard. International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Programme Manager Anita Nyanjong says Kenya remains a world leader in handing the sentence, terming it a violation of the right to life. (PHOTO: DAVID NJAAGA/ STANDARD)

"This offence carries a mandatory sentence. I hereby sentence you to death by hanging until satisfied dead. You have a right of appeal."

These harsh words still linger in the mind of Morris Kaberia, a former police officer now awaiting the hangman's noose at Kamiti Maximum Prison.

They were uttered by Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku after she found him guilty of robbery with violence in 2009.

He is among convicts facing the gallows as the debate on whether to abolish the death sentence rages on.

"The sentence was the most cruel thing to have happened to me and I always pray that it does not happen to anybody. Death is not only torturous but inhuman and degrading," he said.

Memories of the doors behind him locking as he was escorted by prison warders to his new home are still fresh in his mind.

"I was stripped naked before changing to the badly smelling prison attire. I knew that indeed my life had come to an end," he said.

The ex-policeman has since made friends with colleagues at the facility's Death Row Ward. They include William Onyango and Wilson Kung'u, who welcomed and encouraged him to join the prison's academy where he now teaches.

Gabriel Odera Emsa, 58, says he was handed the sentence after he failed to prove his innocence in a case in which he was accused of stealing two loaves of bread and Sh3,000 from a kiosk in Kibomet, Kitale on January 12, 2000.

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Programme Manager Anita Nyanjong says Kenya remains a world leader in handing the sentence, terming it a violation of the right to life.

Kenya has about 4,000 inmates on death row. Many countries have abolished the death penalty. At least 58 others are still considering the death penalty as a remedy for such crimes.