Being in prison and especially as an innocent citizen is the most traumatizing experience to any human being.
Wilson Kinywa now 40 narrated his painful story of how he was convicted to hang following a mistaken offence.
As young as he was Mr. Kinywa had completed his form four when he came to Nairobi in search for college, but one morning while roaming in the city doing his business he was unfortunately was caught up in the wrangle of police and armed robbers where the robbers escaped and he was the policescape goat.
According to Kinywa, “The police claimed that they recovered Sh2 million from the robbers but only produced Sh800,000 in court.”
In addition he said, “I was not able to get legal representation and the judge only heard the narrative by the police to hear and make a determination,”
This led to the judge who was handling his case sentence him to hang in 1998 for robbery with violence.
“I went to prison with the tag of a criminal and without dignity. I come out of prison with a different tag – that of a lawyer and I feel I got my dignity back. The same can happen for death row criminals with proper rehabilitation” Wilson Kinyua #AbolishDeathPenalty pic.twitter.com/p2dUSUhOFH— #WuodMosenda™ (@robi_chacha) February 18, 2019
In his time former President Daniel Moi was the last head of state to sign an execution order against a Kenyan – Sergeant Joseph Ogidi – who was hanged at Kamiti Prison in 1987 alongside six other Airforce soldiers of the Kenya Air Force for their role in the 1982 failed coup.
The goodnews came when former President Mwai Kibaki commuted death sentence to life imprisonment.
“This gave me hope; I even enrolled for CPA now that I was a form four leaver. I managed to do it up to section four,” said Kinywa
This also gave him courage to stand up for his fellow prisoners which happened to be a blessing in disguise after he caught the attention of
Alexander McClay, a UK judge who was touring the correctional facility.
Through his African Prisons Project the judge was impressed and decided to sponsor him to study a diploma in Law in a distance learning programme from the University of London, which he cleared in 2014.
After finishing in the sane spirit the Judge further sponsored him to study a law degree at the same institution.
Kinywa is happy to finally be graduating this year in October and is determined to change the system in the criminal justice as there are so many innocent Kenyans in rotting in jail yet the guilty once are enjoying life outside.
He further said that the knowledge gained from his Law studies has helped him secure his freedom and that of 11 others.
“What we have is not a correctional or a rehabilitative system. It is hardening criminals to be used to commit even worse crimes because the treatment there invokes the beast in you,”