Former MP outwitted rivals to win two elections from behind bars

Veteran politician Mark Mwithaga is perhaps the only Kenyan politician to have landed in jail for allegedly beating his wife. He gained another distinction for winning a parliamentary election while in prison. He was the vice chairman of the JM Kariuki assassination probe committee in the mid 1970s, a role that earned him a lot of bile from President Jomo Kenyatta's administration.

Kenya: Shortly after populist politician Josiah Mwangi (JM) Kariuki met his brutal death at Ngong Hills in 1975, his friend and confidant Mark Mwithaga, who played a pivotal role in the inquiry to unravel his murder, was made to suffer a two-year jail term that saw him effectively out of Parliament.

To the fury of his adversaries, he won two parliamentary elections while in jail and still managed to pull strings to push his preferred candidate to victory in the third election.