On this day, exactly 62 years ago in 1957, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi Waciuri was executed by hanging at the Kamiti Maximum prison.
The freedom fighter, born Kimathi wa Waciuri, was a revolutionary leader who led an armed military struggle known as the Mau Mau Uprising against the British colonial regime in Kenya in the 1950s.
Before his arrest, Kimathi had a 500 GBP bounty on his head and was captured while wearing a leopard skin and charged with possession of a firearm.
He is said to have written a letter to one Father Marino of Catholic Mission just 2 hours before his execution stating that he wanted his son to get education.
“Only a question of getting my son to school. He is far from many of your schools, but I trust that something must be done to see that he starts earlier under your care etc…
“I conclude by telling you only to do me favor by getting education to my son,” Kimathi’s letter read in part.
Kenyan nationalists view him as the heroic figurehead of the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule while the British government saw him as a terrorist.
A court presided over by Chief Justice O’Connor and with an all-black jury of Kenyans sentenced him to death while he lay in a hospital bed at the General Hospital Nyeri. His appeal was dismissed, and the death sentence upheld.
Before his execution, his wife was secretly driven to Kamiti prison.
He told her that “”I have no doubt in my mind that the British are determined to execute me. I have committed no crime. My only crime is that I am a Kenyan revolutionary who led a liberation army… Now If I must leave you and my family I have nothing to regret about. My blood will water the tree of Independence.”
In the early morning of 18 February 1957 he was executed by hanging at the Kamiti Prison. He was buried in an unmarked grave and his burial site remains unknown.
Despite being viewed with disdain by the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi governments, Kimathi and his fellow Mau Mau rebels were officially recognized as heroes in the struggle for Kenyan independence since the Mwai Kibaki administration, culminating in the unveiling of a Kimathi statue in 2007.
This was reinforced by the passage of a new Constitution in 2010 calling for recognition of national heroes.