Kamiti Maximum Security Prison is a prison in

Nairobi County Nairobi City County is one of the 47 counties of Kenya. With a population of 4,397,073 in the 2019 census, it is the third smallest yet the most populous of the counties, also serving as the capital of Kenya. In 2013, the county entity was eff ...

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. The prison is within Roysambu Constituency,

Kasarani Kasarani is a commercial and residential neighbourhood in Nairobi. Kasarani is also used in reference to the city's sub-county with the same name, which spans through neighbourhoods in the northeastern areas of Nairobi. Located within the larg ...

District, bordering

Kiambu County Kiambu County is a county in the former Central Province of Kenya. Its capital is Kiambu and its largest town is Thika. Kiambu County is the second most populous after Nairobi County. Kiambu County borders Nairobi and Kajiado Counties to the So ...

. Originally named "Kamiti Downs", it sits in the middle of its own estates which lie fallow and untended. During the 1980s and early 1990s many political prisoners were held at Kamiti, including

Hussein Onyango Obama The family of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a prominent American family active in law, education, activism and politics. Obama's immediate family circle was the first family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, a ...

Kenneth Matiba Kenneth Stanley Njindo Matiba (1 June 1932 – 15 April 2018) was a Kenyan politician and an activist for democracy. He came in at second place in the 1992 presidential election. In November 2007, he announced that he would stand as a president ...

Raila Odinga Raila Amolo Odinga (born 7 January 1945) is a Kenyan politician, former Member of Parliament (MP) for Langata and businessman who served as the Prime Minister of Kenya from 2008 to 2013. He is assumed to be the Leader of Opposition in Kenya sin ...

, Koigi wa Wamwere,

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Literature of Kenya, Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu language, Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English language, English. He has been described as having bee ...

, Jonah Anguka and numerous others. Many executions have been carried out in Kamiti. Mau Mau rebel leader

Dedan Kimathi Dedan Kimathi Waciuri (31 October 1920 – 18 February 1957), born ''Kimathi wa Waciuri'' in what was then British Kenya, was the senior military and spiritual leader of the Mau Mau Uprising. Widely regarded as a revolutionary leader, he led t ...

was

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in ...

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

colonial administration on 18 February 1957.

Hezekiah Ochuka Hezekiah Rabala Ochuka, (alias Awour) (23 July 1953 – 9 July 1987) was Senior Private in the Kenya Air Force, who ruled Kenya for about six hours after planning and executing a coup against president Daniel arap Moi. Hezekiah Ochuka was the c ...

and Pancras Oteyo Okumu were executed there on 17 May 1987. No death penalties have been held in Kenya since, although

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

is not formally abolished.

Daily Nation The ''Daily Nation'' is the highest circulation Kenyan independent newspaper with 170,000 copies. History The ''Daily Nation'' was started in the year 1958 as a Swahili language, Swahili weekly called ''Taifa'' by the Englishman Charles Hay ...

, 7 January 2007: On death row for 31 year

/ref> Kenya's prisons are infamous for poor conditions and inhumane treatment, although the situation has improved slightly during

Mwai Kibaki Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki (15 November 1931 – 21 April 2022) was a Kenyan politician who served as the third President of Kenya from December 2002 until April 2013 and is regarded as one of Kenya's founding fathers. He had previously ser ...

's government since 2002 and some prisoners on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

have been released. There is still no reliable water supply, with over 200 prisoners hauling buckets of water around daily. The inmates working in the "industry" section are paid only 10 cents (Kenya shilling) per day, as per the outdated 1940s legislation which rules the organisation. Within the prison, condemned "G" block is famed for its particularly brutal lifestyle, characterised by predatory sodomy and mobile phone confidence tricksters. The prison was built for 1400 prisoners, and it now houses over 3600 in poor living conditions. On 17 November 2008 a search was carried out in G block for mobile phones which resulted in a brutal beating by the warders being captured on mobile phone video and given to the

Kenya National Commission on Human Rights The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) is an autonomous national human rights institution, established by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Act, 2011. It is a successor to the body of the same name established by an earl ...

(KNCHR), and shown on Kenyan TV. Kirugumi wa Wanjuki was the longest serving and to date last hangman at Kamiti. Wanjuki died in 2009. In November 2009 at least eight prisoners died due to

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

outbreak at Kamiti Prison.The Standard, 23 November 2009
Eight prisoners die of cholera at Kamiti
/ref>

References

External links

African Tribute

Transfer
a poem about Kamiti Prison {{Coord, -1.177, 36.894, type:landmark_region:KE, display=title Prisons in Kenya Nairobi

See also

References

External links