Wilson Kinyua, an ex-Kamiti inmate, found a new lease of life following his release from prison after spending 21 years behind bars.
Mr Kinyua was arrested during his first visit to Nairobi, back in 1998, barely a year after he had completed his high school education.
He claimed to have journeyed from his home in Nyahururu filled with excitement only to be caught up in a cross-fire between police authorities and armed robbers within the city.
Things took a turn for the worse as he was charged with robbery with violence, a capital offence for which he was convicted and sentenced to hang.
“I was not able to get legal representation and the judge only heard the narrative by the police to hear and make a determination,” Kinyua divulged to The Star.
He went on to reveal how Kamiti Prison broke his spirit with his cell cubicle right next to the hangman’s ‘office'.
“Many times we were stripped naked. The sight of nude men, young and old was just traumatizing. My cubicle was adjacent to the hangman’s nooses and it had an opening to see the nooses, occasionally hear the cry of those being executed,” he disclosed.
However, a move by President Mwai Kibaki to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment in 2009 gave him renewed hope about his future, prompting him to enroll for CPA, which he managed to get to section four.
His fresh impetus also saw him turn into a spokesman for his fellow inmates. It was during one of his vocal addresses that Alexander McClay – a UK judge, who was touring the facility noticed him and offered to sponsor the convict if he undertook a diploma in law at the University of London.
“McClay decided to sponsor me to study diploma in law in a distance learning arrangement with the University of London, which I cleared in 2014,” he divulged.
Clearly impressed, the UK judged further sponsored Mr Kinyua’s law degree at the same University.
Armed with new-found knowledge regarding the law, Mr Kinyua alongside, 11 other inmates, presented a constitutional petition before presiding Judge Luka Kimaru, against the death sentence and won.
He was then released on February 13, 2019, alongside five others whom he had personally represented when he appealed against all their previous sentences.
“I was the one who prosecuted the petition, doing both oral and written submissions. I was heavily motivated by the fact that destroyed people have nothing else to lose.” he affirmed.
The ex-convict has taken up the role of a teacher of Business and Math as well as the head of the drama group - Sparks of Justice, which takes real cases in order to act out the trial aimed at helping inmates learn how to approach the court process effectively.
