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Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't

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Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 2: I was brought up like copsure the good guys.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I

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Speaker 1: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like

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Speaker 1: everything this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent.

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Speaker 1: I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with this. How is this possible? I grew up

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Speaker 1: trusting systems. I've grew up believing that every human being

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Speaker 1: should do the right thing. And that's why, even though

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Speaker 1: I knew I was dealing with four other people, I

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Speaker 1: wasn't going to break anyone to get me out of

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Speaker 1: prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I

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Speaker 1: break my way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent,

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Speaker 1: too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I prove my innocence.

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Speaker 1: And that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system.

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Speaker 3: Since I've been out ten years, it has come a

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Speaker 3: little ways, but it's still broken.

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Speaker 1: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.

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Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's

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Speaker 3: episode is a very special one. My friend Pete Uko

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Speaker 3: is here all the way from Kenya, where he was

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Speaker 3: sentenced to death even though a jury unanimously found him innocent. Pete,

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Speaker 3: I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for hosting me, Jason.

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Speaker 3: First time in America, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, first time in America.

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Speaker 3: Could still dis in full amazing. Well, we're happy you're here.

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Speaker 3: Your story is remarkable in so many ways. Of course,

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Speaker 3: the craziest part of all is the fact that you

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Speaker 3: were found innocent by a jury unanimously, and then the

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Speaker 3: judge overruled the jury and sentenced you to death. Obviously

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Speaker 3: they didn't succeed in killing you, because you're here, and

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Speaker 3: I'm very happy about that, so you're sort of immortal.

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Speaker 3: And then eighteen years in prison later, and now this

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Speaker 3: story is just it's phenomenal. But let's start at the beginning.

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Speaker 3: So you were born in Kenya.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't born in Kenya forty eight years ago. A

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Speaker 1: big family of twelve. My mom had nine girls and.

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Speaker 3: Three boys, which one were you?

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Speaker 1: I'm number eight back down in.

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Speaker 3: The line, number eight, okay, and two same parents for

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Speaker 3: all twelve kids. Yeah, amazing, that's what we thought is

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Speaker 3: in Africa sometimes. And what about your parents? What did

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Speaker 3: they do?

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Speaker 1: Oh? My dad passed twenty nineteen ninety seven, just a

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Speaker 1: year before I went to prison. And my mom is

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Speaker 1: still alive. She's a retired teacher. She stays up country

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Speaker 1: does farming. We're just aging gracefully.

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Speaker 3: And what was your dad doing before he died.

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Speaker 1: My dad was a lecturer, He was a civil servant.

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Speaker 1: Both my parents actually are teachers. My mom taught me

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Speaker 1: grade one to three.

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Speaker 3: So you grew up in this big, happy family. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and it was in the city or.

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Speaker 1: No, I grew up half of us grew up in

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Speaker 1: the city with my dad who my dad was working

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Speaker 1: in Arobi, and me and the others grew up country.

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Speaker 1: Mom said she wanted to keep at least one of

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Speaker 1: the sons up country because she didn't want the town

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Speaker 1: influence to mess up her son. Then she picked on me.

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Speaker 3: I don't know why you went to school and graduated.

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Speaker 3: How did the education start?

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Speaker 1: And then I went to primary school from class one

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Speaker 1: to seven, I imagine as the best, one of the

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Speaker 1: best in the country in nineteen eighty two exams primary

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Speaker 1: school exams. Then I was admitted to Alliance High School,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the top schools in the country,

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Speaker 1: where I did my old levels. After that, I went

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Speaker 1: from my A levels to another school and straight from school,

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Speaker 1: my mom wanted me to go study in India. I

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Speaker 1: didn't want to go study in India, so I went

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Speaker 1: straight to business. I was employed by Buttershoe Company as

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Speaker 1: a shop manager at nineteen years, just before I turned twenty.

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Speaker 3: And you got married young.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was twenty two and my late wife was eighteen.

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Speaker 3: Is that sort of typical in Kenya? So people get

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Speaker 3: married in their teens early twenties.

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Speaker 1: No, in some instances it tease. Now it's changed, But

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Speaker 1: for me, I felt that getting married at that age

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Speaker 1: you'd help me cool down. I led a pretty white

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Speaker 1: life and I was just living the life so I

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Speaker 1: want today. I mean, I just say that the girl

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Speaker 1: would get my baby, just Maria straight. So when she

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Speaker 1: told me she was expecting my baby, I say it fine,

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Speaker 1: we make it happen.

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Speaker 3: And you did, and you did, and you had two kids.

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Speaker 3: And then one night everything went horribly wrong in a

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Speaker 3: way that is almost unimaginable. So your wife was raped

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Speaker 3: and murdered in handcuffs, in front of the police station.

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Speaker 3: And this is one of the things about this story

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Speaker 3: that just absolutely boggles the mind of everyone who hears it.

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Speaker 3: But the fact is, this is what happened. So first

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Speaker 3: of all, how did this unwind that faithful night? Like,

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Speaker 3: what were you doing? Where was she? What were the circumstances?

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Speaker 3: How did this go so horribly wrong?

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Speaker 1: I mean, just like you've said, many people when they

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Speaker 1: hear my story and they see the mood, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they think it's you know, they don't believe what it is.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, on the eighteenth evening of December nineteen ninety eight,

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Speaker 1: the story is I was told my wife left work

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Speaker 1: to come home and she didn't come home. At that time,

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Speaker 1: I was with my friend Willie. I was with Willie's family,

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Speaker 1: his late brother John, and we did dinner then really

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Speaker 1: dropped me home. Later Jennifer was supposedly leaving her work

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Speaker 1: at nine pm, just I think around nine pm according

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Speaker 1: to the evidence, I sawn got and then when she

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Speaker 1: didn't come home, I arrived home I think eleven when

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Speaker 1: I will dropped me and I didn't find a home.

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Speaker 1: Back then, we didn't have mobile phones and Kenya, we

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Speaker 1: didn't have easy communications. So you had to rely on

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Speaker 1: the landlines. So I waited patiently. I didn't see her.

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Speaker 1: I was like, it's not normal for her not to

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Speaker 1: come home, But I don't know where to go start searching,

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Speaker 1: So I just assumed maybe she could have gone to

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Speaker 1: a cousin or a friend or relative. And yet I

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Speaker 1: had this nagging that something was wrong, but I didn't

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Speaker 1: know just what to do about it.

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Speaker 3: And she was working in a soon.

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Speaker 1: She was working in a salon, and she had a

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Speaker 1: late client that night who was having a wedding the

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Speaker 1: next day. These are things that came out in evidence

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Speaker 1: on you in court. So the client came in just

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Speaker 1: before Jenny was to leave work, and she kept Jennie

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Speaker 1: until nine o'clock and then she left Jenny in the salon.

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Speaker 3: And that turns out to be an important detail later on,

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Speaker 3: but go ahead.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So the next day, on nineteenth, we woke up

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Speaker 1: in the morning. I didn't see Jenny. The house, I

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Speaker 1: didn't find Jenny. So I woke up very early, called

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Speaker 1: the office her workplace the phone was entering, and then

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Speaker 1: I went to my office was just not so far

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Speaker 1: from where her office was, made another call, a second

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Speaker 1: call because I was now getting agitated. Where could she be?

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Speaker 1: She didn't tell me. I didn't have information about if

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Speaker 1: she was supposed to go out anywhere, and I remember

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Speaker 1: it was a Friday. So the next thing I did

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Speaker 1: was I called again at around nine point thirty, and

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Speaker 1: then the lady on the other hand picked in the

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Speaker 1: salon and told me, Hey, Pete, we're sorry, but Jenny

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Speaker 1: has been found murdered. And I just went blank. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to

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Speaker 1: react to it. I couldn't even cry because I just

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Speaker 1: didn't know. It just hit me. I was twenty eight

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Speaker 1: and Jennie was twenty four, and we had these small kids,

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Speaker 1: and it just hit me like a thunderstorm. I just

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Speaker 1: got flomox and just stopped for a minute. And then

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Speaker 1: I had to recollect myself very first, because for one,

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Speaker 1: I knew I had left my kids in the house

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Speaker 1: with the house help, and my sister in law also

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Speaker 1: was staying with us, and I just didn't know how

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Speaker 1: to face it. I just lost my dad a couple

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Speaker 1: of months before, and Jenny was closest to me at

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Speaker 1: that moment, and I mean she was a darling to

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Speaker 1: my mom, very close to my mom, and she helped

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Speaker 1: mom go through that grieving moment and now here she was.

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Speaker 1: So I didn't know how I was going to face it,

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Speaker 1: tell my mom, tell my kids. I just didn't know

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Speaker 1: how to handle that moment. So the first thing I

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Speaker 1: did because I asked her where has it happened? Then

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Speaker 1: she told me the body's been found right outside the

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Speaker 1: fence of the police station. So I just carried my

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Speaker 1: guide and asked myself, how can something like that happened

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Speaker 1: outside the police station? And I know the police station

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Speaker 1: is heavily guarded.

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Speaker 3: Just I just wanted to say, so the police station,

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Speaker 3: it wasn't like an outpost. It was like a proper

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Speaker 3: police station.

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Speaker 1: The police it's a big compound because the police lines

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Speaker 1: are there, the police stay there are the very rare,

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Speaker 1: and then the officers are in the front. So it's

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Speaker 1: a reasonably big not three acres, let me say, And

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Speaker 1: it's a reasonably big compound. And so the body was

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Speaker 1: found on the outside, just behind the police lines. We

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Speaker 1: call them the police lines, the police quoters are called

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Speaker 1: police lines in Kenya. So the body was just found

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Speaker 1: outside the fence there. So when she told me that,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't understand how because I knew that even on

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Speaker 1: the other end, the police quoters are guided from back

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Speaker 1: and front.

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Speaker 3: If somebody was going to take somebody and murder them,

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Speaker 3: the last place they would take them instead the police station.

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Speaker 1: And that's that's that's what's hard to believe about this matter,

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Speaker 1: because initially you're like, how could that happen? I mean,

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Speaker 1: anyone would have said this guy would fear been caught

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Speaker 1: somewhere here. And one of the things that seen in

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Speaker 1: Kenya was that if someone rapped a lady, he'd take

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Speaker 1: off if the lady didn't know that person, but if

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Speaker 1: that lady got killed in the process of rape, it

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Speaker 1: was out of fear that that person would be identified.

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Speaker 1: And then it happened right out of the police station.

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Speaker 1: The postmotem report came that the riga motives set in

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Speaker 1: when the hand was handcufft. That was the report of

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Speaker 1: the chief government pathologists at that time, and it's the

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Speaker 1: very handcuffs that I used to strangle around the neck.

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Speaker 1: So these are reports that I got to find later.

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Speaker 1: But at the initial stage I went to the police station.

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Speaker 1: I found my in laws, who apparently hadn't approved of

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Speaker 1: our marriage before because they felt had taken out their

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Speaker 1: young girl before they had a chance to be long enough.

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Speaker 1: Maybe my mother in law is very supportive. My father

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Speaker 1: and lawyers didn't like me. He just didn't want that.

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Speaker 1: But first forward to that evening, I reached there. I

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Speaker 1: find of my late wife's relatives, Jenny's relatives there. Then

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Speaker 1: they tell the cops lock this guy in. As simple

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Speaker 1: as that. I go to the police station. No one

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Speaker 1: gives me an apology, no one tells me pete sorry

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Speaker 1: or anything. The next thing I hear come into this room.

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Speaker 1: I get into the police room, I'm told to strip off.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm being told to strap off.

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Speaker 1: I strip off, they do body search. Then I just

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Speaker 1: hear someone say out there, lock this guy in.

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Speaker 3: What time of day was this?

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Speaker 1: That was around eleven o'clock in the morning.

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Speaker 3: Right, so this is now about twelve hours since the

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Speaker 3: murder occurred. Yeah, so you show up there, the other

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Speaker 3: relatives are there, and they see you being taken into

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Speaker 3: the police station.

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Speaker 1: They're the ones who said that I should be locked in.

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Speaker 3: Because they didn't like you, because they didn't like me.

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Speaker 1: That's why it all started. It was about selling scores,

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Speaker 1: like we didn't like this guy, so maybe let us

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Speaker 1: keep him somewhere. But they did know the ramifications. Just

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Speaker 1: to make it clear. They later came on to prison

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Speaker 1: and apologies to me, but it was too late because

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Speaker 1: I'd already been convict it.

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Speaker 3: They knew from the beginning that Jennifer was murdered in handcuffs,

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Speaker 3: raped and murdered in handcuffs. Rangle with the handcuffs, where

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Speaker 3: would you have gotten handcuffs from?

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Speaker 1: Because the big question, you know, the handcuff issue came

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Speaker 1: at the postmotem stage when the autopsy was being conducted.

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Speaker 1: But when the body was found there it was, as

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Speaker 1: they said, the recamotes set in when the hands were

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Speaker 1: upp here in a defensive position.

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Speaker 3: And they had taken the handcuffs off by now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah I think, yeah, now, I think they've taken the

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Speaker 1: handcuffs off because she had scratch marks around her wrists

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Speaker 1: and on her neck, so the larynx was broken by

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Speaker 1: whatever it was.

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Speaker 3: I don't name her. And so so they take you

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Speaker 3: into the police station. First, they make you strip. Obviously

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Speaker 3: they were trying to see if you had some some

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Speaker 3: scratch marks because obviously she fought right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Jenny could have let anyone do that. To her

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Speaker 1: without a fight, of course.

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Speaker 3: Not especially a young man, but anybody. So you had

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Speaker 3: no scars, no scratches, nothing, And then they started asking

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Speaker 3: you questions, how does it work?

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Speaker 1: No question. I was just told I was just put in.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't asked a single question. I wasn't told anything.

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Speaker 1: The moment I was told put this guy in, I

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Speaker 1: was thrown in for two weeks without talking to anyone.

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Speaker 1: The law said that I should be taken to after

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Speaker 1: fourteen days, but I was kept there for another fourteen

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Speaker 1: days and then two more days, which was one month.

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Speaker 3: And can you describe that that's a jail, right, that's

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Speaker 3: not a present that you were in.

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Speaker 1: No, that's police custody. It's just in the police custody.

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Speaker 1: I was illegally detained for thirty days.

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Speaker 3: And can you describe what that was like?

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Speaker 1: The police jail cells like ten by ten feet, four

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Speaker 1: four men and two four ladies on the other side,

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Speaker 1: so that total of six. But then it's a place

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Speaker 1: where they bring in every kind of person. The place

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Speaker 1: where my little wife was found murdered was Ina, densely

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Speaker 1: populated Eastland side of Nairobi, so they arrest drunks every

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Speaker 1: other day. The cells are always full. They're no blankets,

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Speaker 1: they're no beddings, there's not nothing. I mean, you're there

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Speaker 1: with drunks here there, with all kinds of people brought

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Speaker 1: in every day, and then they have to go to

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Speaker 1: court and you just kept there. You don't know why

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Speaker 1: you're being kept there. No one is telling you anything.

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Speaker 1: You get your newspapers, you read like everything is going

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Speaker 1: on normally, but there's no communication.

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Speaker 3: And they bring the food into the cell.

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Speaker 1: I didn't take any food there. My secretary used to

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Speaker 1: bring me food because at that time i'd I'd started

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Speaker 1: my own business, and so I got food from home.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to take any food because I didn't

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Speaker 1: trust anyone other time.

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Speaker 3: I was very smart, actually, because considering that the conspiracy

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Speaker 3: was pretty clear from the beginning, you were the convenien

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Speaker 3: escape goat, and they had to get somebody because they

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Speaker 3: weren't going to arrest one of their own.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, at that time, we didn't even know it was

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Speaker 1: one of their own, but we had strong suspicions that

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Speaker 1: someone was hiding something there. I mean, I had a

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Speaker 1: very good lawyer, George came and took that matter as

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Speaker 1: if it was his own. It's like he was fighting

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Speaker 1: his own life. George is the lawyer, right, yeah, George

291
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Speaker 1: is my lawyer.

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Speaker 3: Okay, it's confusing to me sometimes George and judge. But

293
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Speaker 3: George is your lawyer and the judge is the judge,

294
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Speaker 3: and two very different characters. Because George was an honest

295
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Speaker 3: guy and the judge was corrupt.

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Speaker 1: He asked for everything that was needed. They kept stolling

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Speaker 1: him for a full month, and they told me we

298
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Speaker 1: have nothing against this guy. Then he was asking, why

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Speaker 1: an't you releasing me if you have nothing against him?

300
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Speaker 1: So I think after a month, I had to write

301
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Speaker 1: a letter to the police commissioner and to the Toorney

302
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Speaker 1: General of the country because I'd noticed a pattern of

303
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:24,000
Speaker 1: cover ups and pattern of travesty of justice. And also

304
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Speaker 1: the police were there. Because I'd stayed so long, I

305
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:29,880
Speaker 1: became like the local there. Now they started telling me stuff,

306
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Speaker 1: right because everybody.

307
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Speaker 3: Else is in and out, they're drunk and go home

308
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Speaker 3: the next day, and you're still the.

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Speaker 1: Staff still there. I became a permanent feature there, and

310
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Speaker 1: they didn't know why I was being held. Mind you,

311
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Speaker 1: by that time, no evidence, nobody had written any statement

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Speaker 1: about me or against me. Nothing that was nothing. The

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Speaker 1: fellow was empty.

314
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Speaker 3: So you had an empty file thirty days go by

315
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Speaker 3: because you weren't actually formally charged for four months, right.

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Speaker 1: No, I after thirty days when I wrote the letter.

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Speaker 1: I wrote an official letter of complaint to the Attorney

318
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Speaker 1: General and to the Police Commissioner. And I was very

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Speaker 1: blunt in it. I said, I don't understand why I'm

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Speaker 1: in a police custody. I'm supposed to be moaning my wife.

321
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Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be finding out what happened.

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Speaker 3: To my wife and taking care of your children.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and taking care of my children. But someone has

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Speaker 1: turned it into a circus and they're using that opportunity

325
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Speaker 1: to make up stuff and to cover up everything. So

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Speaker 1: I said, for heaven's sake, take me to court if

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Speaker 1: you feel you have anything against me. I'm the one

328
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Speaker 1: was take me to court. And when they got that,

329
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Speaker 1: because it was published in the media, they felt that

330
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Speaker 1: I'd really got into them. I mean, back then, the

331
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Speaker 1: criminal justice system was very rotten. You're not supposed to

332
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Speaker 1: question the police, You're not supposed to question anybody. And

333
00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:02,520
Speaker 1: so they said, okay, you've reported us to our bosses,

334
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Speaker 1: so now let's get down to it. So I was

335
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Speaker 1: taken to quote after a month. On the thirty first day,

336
00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:10,920
Speaker 1: there was nothing, so I was told go back to

337
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Speaker 1: remand prison. At the remand prison, I waited for two weeks.

338
00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:18,680
Speaker 1: I was taken back again to the police station because

339
00:16:18,880 --> 00:16:21,360
Speaker 1: I couldn't be kept in remand custody without a file,

340
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Speaker 1: without any evidence, I couldn't prepare for anything. There was

341
00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:26,840
Speaker 1: nothing on me, and so I went back to the

342
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Speaker 1: police station. They kept me again for another thirty days,

343
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Speaker 1: then they charged me after sixty days. By the time

344
00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:36,560
Speaker 1: they were charging me, they didn't have a single evidence

345
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Speaker 1: or any statement. So the first statement was written four

346
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Speaker 1: months after my arrest in April. Because I have all

347
00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:46,000
Speaker 1: the statements, we have all the dates, so we could

348
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Speaker 1: see when that thing was written.

349
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Speaker 3: Right right right, That's the number I had in my head,

350
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:53,800
Speaker 3: was the four months, because that's when the only quote

351
00:16:53,880 --> 00:16:57,720
Speaker 3: unquote witness who wasn't even really a witness. It certainly

352
00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:00,440
Speaker 3: wasn't a witness of the murder. But this guy all

353
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:02,960
Speaker 3: of a sudden comes out and remembers details. And we

354
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:06,359
Speaker 3: see this again and again in frame ups right where

355
00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:10,040
Speaker 3: suddenly you have somebody have a miraculous recollection of something

356
00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:13,040
Speaker 3: that happened weeks or months or years ago that they

357
00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:15,960
Speaker 3: couldn't remember when they were initially questioned. And that's what

358
00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:18,919
Speaker 3: happened here. They had obviously somebody went and spoke to

359
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Speaker 3: this guy and told them what to remember.

360
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think God like, I think, you can

361
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:26,120
Speaker 1: try to hide some things, but you can't hide everything.

362
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:28,280
Speaker 1: And this guy when he came to court, he was

363
00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:31,080
Speaker 1: very frank and candid. Adding his statements, he says he

364
00:17:31,119 --> 00:17:33,480
Speaker 1: only wrote that statement after he was approached by the

365
00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:35,360
Speaker 1: police to go to the police station and write it.

366
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:38,680
Speaker 1: He had nothing. He was told, now, come and do this,

367
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Speaker 1: and that's why his statement was so disjointed. He had

368
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:44,440
Speaker 1: two statements. He wrote the first stedment, he wrote the

369
00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:48,640
Speaker 1: second statement, which contradicts the first statement. Luckily, unluckily, they

370
00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 1: gave me both statements. So he just choose those two

371
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:54,040
Speaker 1: statements to discredit his evidence. They're not adding up.

372
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Speaker 3: Okay, So what did he even say that he saw?

373
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Speaker 1: He said, he's saw someone come to pick Jennifer from

374
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Speaker 1: work at eight, then they left at nine. Now that

375
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,000
Speaker 1: person was supposed to be me and me I was

376
00:18:09,080 --> 00:18:12,880
Speaker 1: somewhere else with Willie and Linda and John and their family.

377
00:18:13,359 --> 00:18:14,960
Speaker 3: So you had an alibi, and it was a good

378
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:17,000
Speaker 3: albi because these weren't even family members of yours.

379
00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:19,000
Speaker 1: There were family members, and my alibi is too it.

380
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:21,320
Speaker 1: By the way, that's the other absad thing about my case.

381
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:24,000
Speaker 1: My other laba was accepted and I was still convicted.

382
00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:27,320
Speaker 3: Okay, it's getting weirder and weird, but how long did

383
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:29,760
Speaker 3: it take from this point to actually get to trial.

384
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:35,280
Speaker 1: We went to travel in July because Judge, my lawyer,

385
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:39,520
Speaker 1: was very insistent that we had together think cracking. He

386
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:41,639
Speaker 1: didn't see a reason why I was supposed to be

387
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:45,320
Speaker 1: in prison for something I didn't do. And George incidentally

388
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,440
Speaker 1: also knew my late wife. They come from the same

389
00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:50,760
Speaker 1: region me. I'm married from Kenya. There was this issue

390
00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:53,800
Speaker 1: of this tribe should not marry this tribe at that stage.

391
00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:57,919
Speaker 1: Nowadays it's more common in people into Marian stuff. So

392
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:00,159
Speaker 1: there was that and it was basically political, but it

393
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,480
Speaker 1: got ingrained in many people's psyche that certain tribes should

394
00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:07,240
Speaker 1: not intermarriage due to political competition. But then I went

395
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:10,679
Speaker 1: against the green and my dad had told me human

396
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,159
Speaker 1: beings are equal, so it doesn't matter where your friends

397
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:16,840
Speaker 1: come from. But just to go back to your question,

398
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:21,479
Speaker 1: this guy when he came and wrote that statement. He

399
00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:23,919
Speaker 1: came to court and said, I was told to do

400
00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:27,359
Speaker 1: X y Z. I was taken to the cell where

401
00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,160
Speaker 1: Pitt was before I wrote the statement, so he didn't

402
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:32,600
Speaker 1: even know who he was talking about. He was brought

403
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:34,320
Speaker 1: to the police cell. He will showed these a guy.

404
00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:36,479
Speaker 1: After that he went and wrote the statement. These are

405
00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:39,679
Speaker 1: stuff that in his official statement to the police and

406
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:43,440
Speaker 1: evidence in court. But at that point, no one wanted

407
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. The judicial system was totally corrupt.

408
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:51,760
Speaker 1: Judges were taking bribes left, right and center. Some judges

409
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,399
Speaker 1: were even giving the litigants as long as they were paid.

410
00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:57,760
Speaker 1: You write the judgment, bring it for me to sign.

411
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:00,080
Speaker 1: And that was one of the causes that the and

412
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:02,320
Speaker 1: you had a total overhaul of the judiciary in two

413
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,520
Speaker 1: thousand and three because it was throttened to the core.

414
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:08,679
Speaker 3: So the judges were the richest guys in town. I

415
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 3: guess right.

416
00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:10,640
Speaker 1: I don't know what they were doing with the money.

417
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:12,960
Speaker 1: I think they were drinking it off and just running

418
00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 1: around with pretty people. Maybe I don't know, But the

419
00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:17,840
Speaker 1: thing is, my judge was one of the first to

420
00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 1: be sucked for corruption.

421
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:23,159
Speaker 3: You really hit the reverse jackpot in terms of getting

422
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:25,639
Speaker 3: a judge and then an a Pellet judge as well.

423
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:29,680
Speaker 3: Both of them were proven later and fired for being

424
00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 3: totally corrupt. Back to the story, so you go to

425
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:37,040
Speaker 3: trial in July. Now let me just remember, so you've

426
00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:38,840
Speaker 3: now been behind bars for.

427
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:43,040
Speaker 1: That's the seventh month. Now when the trail starts was

428
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 1: pretty fast, because back then you could start a trail

429
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:48,879
Speaker 1: after two years Kenya, there was a big backlog. Judges

430
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,240
Speaker 1: didn't want to do cases. But thank god to my

431
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,520
Speaker 1: lawyer George, he was very, very persistent and he really

432
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:56,680
Speaker 1: pushed to have everything done because he didn't see the

433
00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:59,000
Speaker 1: reason no I should be in prison. So this gay

434
00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 1: comes to court says he's so Jennifer being walked away

435
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 1: by this guy who's supposed to be me. Then he

436
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 1: forgets at the same time, Jennifer had a client at

437
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:11,720
Speaker 1: the very time he's talking about, Jenny was with a

438
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:13,800
Speaker 1: clant in the salon and that's why she stayed late

439
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:17,480
Speaker 1: until nine. So this clent comes to quote and says,

440
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 1: the very time this gay says that Jenny was picked,

441
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,040
Speaker 1: I was actually with Jenny in the salon. No one

442
00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 1: came to pick Jenny. I left at nine. No one

443
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 1: I didn't meet anyone in the stairs, and there's no

444
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 1: one I don't know this gay. This guy didn't come

445
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:31,240
Speaker 1: to pick Jenny.

446
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 3: So he's now been proven to be a liar.

447
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:35,639
Speaker 1: He was a left from the word go.

448
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 3: So how many people were on the jury? Three? So

449
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:44,200
Speaker 3: the jury are listening to the very stuff that we're

450
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 3: talking about now, right, the unraveling of the government's case,

451
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 3: and they saw through all of it. It was so

452
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 3: transparent that it's actually ridiculous.

453
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. And I'll just let you know that there

454
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,400
Speaker 1: was so bewildered that there are times this top trial

455
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:03,840
Speaker 1: to ask questions to the witnesses directly because it was

456
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:06,439
Speaker 1: just not making sense to them, and because they law

457
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 1: allowed them to ask questions. When the judge noticed that

458
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: they were asking questions that were beneficial to me, he

459
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: would stop them. And that's when we suspected something was

460
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:19,120
Speaker 1: a miss. But we believe that since I was innocent,

461
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: we had nothing to lose, we had nothing to fear.

462
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: I grew up trusting systems. I grew up believing that

463
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 1: every human being should do the right thing. That's what

464
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:29,639
Speaker 1: my dad taught me. And that's why even though I

465
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:31,399
Speaker 1: knew I was dealing with corup people. I was not

466
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: going to bribe anyone to get me out of prison

467
00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't live with the fact that I bribed

468
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: my way out of my wife's death. I said, if

469
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: someone wants to charge me, I need to clear my

470
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: name the right way.

471
00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a pretty strong statement. Back to the trial,

472
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 3: So how long did the trial last?

473
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:51,920
Speaker 1: The trial lasted the first year and then we had

474
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,360
Speaker 1: to take a break because two of the jury members

475
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: were taken out to go do something somewhere. You said

476
00:22:57,080 --> 00:23:00,520
Speaker 1: it lasted the first year and then the second because

477
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:02,360
Speaker 1: it ended in two thousand and one.

478
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 3: Wait, but how long how many days or weeks or

479
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 3: months did the trial?

480
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:08,120
Speaker 1: No, you'd have a trial two days in a week,

481
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: then you're given an adjudgment for another three months. You

482
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:14,480
Speaker 1: come back, you have three days, you're giving another judgment

483
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 1: for six months. I mean, it's nothing like you have

484
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:19,719
Speaker 1: one week of trial and the decision is meant.

485
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 3: So that's an interesting system because that gives everybody just

486
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 3: enough time to forget everything that they just heard exactly.

487
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 3: But that's so ridiculous, Like why it doesn't make I mean, listen,

488
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not going to be critical because I

489
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 3: know just how backwards our system is in so many ways.

490
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 3: But that seems completely crazy. Why wouldn't you have a

491
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,120
Speaker 3: trial that is contiguous? Is there any rationale for that?

492
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 1: I mean, hard walking judges, consenttious judges insist on having

493
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 1: trills started and completed at the best name. But I

494
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 1: wasn't dealing with a concenttious judge, just like I've said,

495
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 1: so he had his own agenda.

496
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 3: Okay, now I understand when you said the trial lasted

497
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 3: a year two years. I'm thinking, you're going every day

498
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:57,160
Speaker 3: to court.

499
00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: No no, no, no no. You go for a day or

500
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: two adjuntment for one reason or another. The next day

501
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: you're giving another three months to wait. You go back

502
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: to prison, you just hung out there, You come back again.

503
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: Maybe the witnesses are not there to go back home.

504
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 3: That's another thing. Like even the jurors, what if I mean,

505
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 3: this is so crazy for them too, because what if

506
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,640
Speaker 3: they go away or somebody moves and then you haven't

507
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,360
Speaker 3: But it was the same jurors throughout the whole.

508
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 1: It was the same jurors. I mean, there were people

509
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: who are I just looked at them and felt these

510
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: days could do justice because they had no emotions. They

511
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: were just stunfist. So but they were listening through every

512
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: single thing.

513
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 3: So the trial takes forever two.

514
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: Years, which was very fast by Kenyon's standards. At that time.

515
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 3: Two years.

516
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 1: Trials were going for five years, six years.

517
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 3: Oh my god. The trial takes in your case two years,

518
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 3: which is an eternity. When you're in the situation you're

519
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 3: in having lost your wife, you had to be super

520
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 3: worried about your kids. I mean, they're having a normal upbringing,

521
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 3: happy family. Next thing you know, mom's been murdered and

522
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 3: then dad's gone, and then everyone's probably talking to them

523
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 3: saying horrible things about you. I mean, it's a miracle

524
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 3: that they're doing well today. Not would more power to

525
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 3: them because it's absolutely unimaginable what they went through. So

526
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 3: the trial winds down, the jury do they go out

527
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 3: to a room to deliberate.

528
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: They go out to deliberate, and they come out to

529
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: give their decision.

530
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 3: How long did that take?

531
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: They took a day?

532
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 3: And what did they say?

533
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: And they say, every one of them has to give

534
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: their own reasons. They had the lead jura, but all

535
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: of them asked to give the individual reasons by the judge.

536
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: So they sturned up. The first one says they've looked

537
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:53,400
Speaker 1: at the case, They've realised new investigations is done, there's

538
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: a blind focus on getting a conviction, and I'm innocent.

539
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 3: And the second one scond.

540
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: And one same story. No investigations or done by the police.

541
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: In fact, what came out very clearly in all their

542
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: assessment was that there was no investigation that had been done.

543
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: There was a blind focus, a decision had been made,

544
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: predetermined decision that this guy had to go to prison.

545
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 1: So they looked through the evidence, they asked, I mean,

546
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,439
Speaker 1: they were bewildered. They said, the police lands are guided.

547
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 1: Something like this cannot happen at a police station. And

548
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: if I told it happened, then the police could have

549
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: arrested those people at that time or that person at

550
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 1: other time. The crazy thing is that I was child,

551
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 1: my child, she reads pete with others, not before the

552
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: court committed the offense. And I took that as a

553
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: insult because my wife has been raped and madered and

554
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: he told me I took people to go rape my

555
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: wife outside a corps station. You know, that was the

556
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:51,479
Speaker 1: biggest insult to me. But I just said I have

557
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 1: to look through this. I mean, I could have gone

558
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: crazy at that point. I could have gone very mad

559
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: at that point, but I realized that I was fire.

560
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: I had a system that was so rigged, pre rigged

561
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: to make people suffer injustices. So I just pray, don't

562
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:08,159
Speaker 1: asked God give me the strength to go through this.

563
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 3: So I didn't even realize that until now. They claimed

564
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 3: that you brought other people with you.

565
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, they said, I was child the charge she treats

566
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 1: Pete with others, not before the court.

567
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 3: Right, I get it, but that is not before the credit. Yeah,

568
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:24,439
Speaker 3: you would be the only person who's ever done that

569
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 3: in the history of the world if that was the case.

570
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 3: But wife to be raped and murdered by you and others,

571
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 3: whoever those others were, which were unnamed, as of course

572
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,479
Speaker 3: they were imaginary. You all had the same great idea

573
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 3: to bring her to the police station, right, total madness.

574
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 3: So the jurors and this is where it's supposed to end, right,

575
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 3: this is where you're supposed to go home.

576
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 1: Jurors make their decision, and I say, you know, I

577
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: sat down. I had seen the drama that was going on,

578
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: and I said, because the jurors picked for the public.

579
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 1: Whatever decision they'll make, I live with it. So to me,

580
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: my trail ended the day the juris to up and

581
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: said you are innocent, all of them unanimously. That is

582
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,719
Speaker 1: when I felt I'm vindicated. Anything that happened after that

583
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: didn't matter to me.

584
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 3: But did you You had no indication that anything else

585
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 3: could happen? I mean, did you have any idea?

586
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: At that point, I expected the judge to do the

587
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: right thing. And then he told me to come from

588
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: my judgment. On the day of the judgment, he didn't

589
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: treat the judgment. He asked for two more weeks. I

590
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: come back again. He postponed it again for the second time.

591
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: And that was a process. If a judge wanted to

592
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: be bribed, he would always push your judgment forward so

593
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: that you go bribing before he releases you. And I

594
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: wasn't going to do that. I told my family, I

595
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: told my friends, I don't have any money. We've used

596
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: our money in the legal briefs, but we are not

597
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: going to bribe anyone. No one should bribe anyone for this.

598
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 3: But the problem was, even if you had bribed him,

599
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 3: he was being bribed already by the other side.

600
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: By the other side. He could have taken from both sides.

601
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 3: It would have been just the highest bidder. Right, It's

602
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 3: really it's almost like a justice auction.

603
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean back then it was a justice auction.

604
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: Kenya has gone through a very tough moment. Thanks to

605
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: the new president, President Quebuck in two thousand and three,

606
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: the justice system had a complete overhaul. They had to

607
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: turn everything upside down in a good way, in a

608
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: good way, in a positive way, and we had to

609
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: start fighting these things in prison. The good thing is

610
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: that the judge who came up in twenty ten in

611
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: the new constitution had been detained by the former government

612
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: that convicted me. He had been detained in prison in

613
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: the same prison I was in on political reasons, so

614
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: he knew what people are going through in prison. And

615
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: he used to tell us pet and make colleagues just

616
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: write petitions, literate and bring them to court. Will make

617
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: a decision.

618
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 3: Let's get to the verdict. So finally, after weeks of

619
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 3: delays and delays and more delays and presumably more payoffs

620
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 3: and bribes, and him waiting to see if your family's

621
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 3: going to come up with even more money or whatever.

622
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 3: You finally brought back to court for the decision, which

623
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 3: again would seem like, at least in our justice system,

624
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 3: and I think in most of the world, there is

625
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 3: no decision have to be made because the judge doesn't

626
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 3: get to overrule the journey. So you come back. Finally,

627
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 3: this ordeal is presumably coming to an end, but actually

628
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 3: it was just beginning.

629
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: It was just beginning because okay, the judge makes the

630
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: final decision. But the law in Kenyon says, the case

631
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: that had been established stated that in the event he

632
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: goes against the decision of the jury, he's supposed to

633
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: give reasons. He's supposed to say I don't agree with

634
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: them because of one to three. In this case, it

635
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 1: was nothing. Instead, he wrote into his judgment things that

636
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: were not even mentioned it court.

637
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 3: So he was actually not only the judge in this case,

638
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 3: he was also playing the prosecutor.

639
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: He was playing the prosecutor, and he has a prosecutor

640
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: all passed by the way. He was a prosecutor before

641
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: his appointed the judge, and I was a prosecutor in

642
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: one of the darkest moments of Kenya's history.

643
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 3: Okay, so you come back. He started reading off all

644
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 3: these supposing new information, new lives, new fairy tales, with

645
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it. And then he says

646
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 3: you're guilty.

647
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, he says you're guilty. You're sentenced to death by

648
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: hanging until certified did by a medical doctor.

649
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 3: Wow.

650
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: And so Georgie is sitting down there. I'm sitting on

651
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: a raised platform there. Our coats are not like yours,

652
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: they're more British. So the suspects of the accused persons

653
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: sit on a higher pedestal in the dock, and the

654
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: witnesses sitting on the other side, and the lawyers sit

655
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: down there. So Georgie looks back at me, joined my

656
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: lawyer and I look at George and instead of crying,

657
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: we laughed at the absurdity of it all. We were

658
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: so disgusted, we just laughed. We couldn't believe what we

659
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: were hearing him read. But my family everyone broke down.

660
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: We're not laughing because we were happy. We were laughing

661
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: because we're disgusted. You're so mad that the only thing

662
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 1: you can do is laugh, you know, that's the only

663
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: way you can placate yourself. And then my mom was there.

664
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: She had believed in the justice system. She was totally broken.

665
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: My mom hasn't recovered up to twenty years later, she's

666
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: here to recover from that. She's yet to recover from

667
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: the betrayal of two thousand and one, which is seventeen

668
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: years ago, and my mom broke down my siblings. People

669
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: just got confused because it never had the death sentence pronounced,

670
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: and then they thought maybe that I'm going to be

671
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: hang the next day. And the media is all there.

672
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: They're all chasing this jewsy story. He had called them,

673
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: that the circus judge had already called them to be there,

674
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: all of them. So they're all following up on this

675
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: jewsy story. They want to take pics. And I said

676
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: one thing, I don't want to see my kids in

677
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: my kids to see me in handcuffs. I always believed

678
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: I was going to see my kids, even though he

679
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,239
Speaker 1: had mentioned that I was supposed to be killed. I

680
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: said one thing, I'll not allow my kids to see

681
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: me in handcuffs. Any picture of mine for my kids

682
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: to see me in handcuffs. So the media was out there.

683
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: We leave the court room. He just tells me to

684
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: take out you're going to appeal immediately. And so as

685
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: we're leaving the court room. The media has been told

686
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: to and on one side they were waiting to take

687
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: pictures and just being tiation because I had my family

688
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: and friends. I just tell them walk beside me, and

689
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:11,719
Speaker 1: as we get out of the court, they block off

690
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: the media. I walk on the other side. The media

691
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: is on the other side trying to break through to

692
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: come take photos of me, and then me I walk

693
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: down very fast to go to the cells. And that

694
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: was it. I'm taken to prison, not to the same

695
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: prison had spent the previous nighting because I came to

696
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: court ready to go home. I'm not taking to the

697
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: maximum security prison.

698
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:33,239
Speaker 3: And what was that like?

699
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: It was crazy because the transport first would tell you

700
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: that things are not the same. We will never be

701
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: the same again. We had trucks. We didn't have buses

702
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: as we do have in KENYAA. So these trucks had

703
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: two compartments at their air and two small benches wooden benches,

704
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: and a small truck would carry more than one hundred inmates,

705
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: so you're packed. You had to stand. For a tall

706
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: person like me, I had to bend and just standing

707
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: in this truck with one hundred other people plus the

708
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: awarders in that track and you just pray that you

709
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: reach wherever you're going because there are small holes at

710
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 1: the top that's supposed to bring ventilation, ventilation holes. They're

711
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: no windows. It's just a metal cage. It's like a cage,

712
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: let me use the word a cage. And so the

713
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: journey is long. We are ever at the prison, the

714
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: maximum security prison, at night around eight o'clock. So who's

715
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: these person who's been brought in a meeting new people

716
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,399
Speaker 1: for the first time. All the cops want to know

717
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: about my case. Everyone is asking many questions which I'm

718
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,919
Speaker 1: not answering, of course, because I'd learned how to live

719
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 1: with people. By that time, I totally lost trust in

720
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: humanity after what happened to me, and I just didn't

721
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:51,479
Speaker 1: want to start talking to anyone. I didn't know whether

722
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: they were asking me questions. So I was processed through

723
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: the system, then taken to the cells.

724
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 3: And that's all block your own cell.

725
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: No, I was sharing that cell, the eight by seven

726
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: foot cell, with thirteen other guys.

727
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 3: What eight by seven foot seal with thirteen other guys

728
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 3: and I'm six four, Yes you are as You're not

729
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 3: a small guy, larger than life character in many many ways.

730
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 3: So there's thirteen other guys. So you you, I mean,

731
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 3: could you even lie down in there?

732
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:26,720
Speaker 1: You can't lie down? You sit now around in a corner.

733
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: I mean, you just have to agree on yourself. One

734
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: thing I loved about prison is that inmates really agree

735
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: on things as a unit. In Kenya, we have no choice.

736
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:36,399
Speaker 1: We have no choice, so we say if we get

737
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: in with our shoes or with our slippers, we could

738
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: easily get sick because there was no water so to speak.

739
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: There was no running water at that time, and food

740
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,280
Speaker 1: was not guaranteed at that time because even the jailer

741
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 1: at that time was very corrupt, and it was always

742
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: ensuring that we had a mil one or the other

743
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 1: day into alternating days so that in between he would

744
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: know what to do with it. But when we went

745
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 1: to prison at that time, we agreed, okay, we are

746
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: many in the small cell, so you leave your sleepers outside,

747
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: you get in, you put them back to back. Then

748
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: we had made somewhere to hook them so that you

749
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: don't get diseases. In the cell. We had a bucket

750
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: toilet that had to be hung on the door because

751
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: there was no space to put it down there, and

752
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: we slept side by side. There was no blankets back

753
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: then nineteen ninety eight to two and one. There are

754
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: no blankets in our prisons. So if you manage to

755
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: get a small piece to cover yourself, fine, But it

756
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: was so hot in there because you're thirteen grown up

757
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: men in a small cell or fourteen in that case,

758
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:34,439
Speaker 1: and then it's so hot. I mean, the next guy

759
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: is literally on your skin. We had lots of skin diseases.

760
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: Likely I never got stick for the eighteen years old

761
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: in prison.

762
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 3: A miracle.

763
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 1: So basically like sorry, I mean on my side, I

764
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: had I had marks on my side here, you know,

765
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: on my hip because you sleep on this hip. It's

766
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: not a carpeted flow. It's a terrazzo flow. The guys

767
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: on this side you all face right. The guys on

768
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: the other side face left. So when you want to turn,

769
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: your prog on what time to turn so that the

770
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: other guy is gone the other side you get turned

771
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 1: to the other side.

772
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 3: Right, so literally like sardines. Then you have to turn

773
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 3: at the same time, which is and by then you

774
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 3: have cramps, and it's got to be cramps.

775
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: But after two weeks you get used to it and

776
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: your body becomes immune and mutant. You just go with

777
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: the motions, you become robotic.

778
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 3: And you would be allowed out of the cell thirty

779
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 3: minutes in a day. Thirty minutes in a day, yeah,

780
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:24,919
Speaker 3: if at all.

781
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: That's only Monday to Friday. But from Saturday and Sunday,

782
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: oh no, nothing, nothing, nothing unless you had a visitor,

783
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: then you'd got So it was a privilege. Actually, when

784
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: I came home, there's a day just stood out some

785
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: and so the sunset for the first time in eighteen years,

786
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: and they just stood and watched the sun got and

787
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: I was like, this is what I was denied for

788
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: so long, something I never saw in prison. I never

789
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 1: go to see the sunset for eighteen.

790
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 3: Years, right, because you're walkinglo and so how the hell

791
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 3: did you maintain your sanday? I mean there must be

792
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 3: guys in there literally losing their mind, because I mean,

793
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 3: how can you put people that close together and so

794
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 3: hot and so uncomfortable physically and no room to move

795
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 3: and no room to do anything? You have? Did you

796
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: have any books in there or anything else?

797
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: Yeah? I could get books. Newspapers were illegal, were prohibited

798
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: at that time. Later on they were allowed. But initially

799
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: I loved reading, and I'm a man of faith, so

800
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: I really kept to the faith. And the good thing

801
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: with people were in their faith, you'd be allowed sometimes

802
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: to go out more than once, so thirty minutes in

803
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 1: the morning, thirty minutes in the afternoon, and many people

804
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: actually came to the faith just because he wanted that opportunity.

805
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: I just learned how to keep my head underwater, not

806
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,760
Speaker 1: to stick out, not to ruffle feathers, but not also

807
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: to walk on with anything. I mean, I became a

808
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: voice to many of my colleagues in prison. They appointed

809
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: me as one of their leaders, so I would speak out.

810
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: We said, I told the officer in charge of the

811
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: one and in charge, we want to do things differently.

812
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: We're not going to be confrontational because we are going

813
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: to write memoranda. If we have an issue, we want

814
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: to write a memoranda, call us the people involved, and

815
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:11,800
Speaker 1: then we face it with them. So we started writing

816
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: memoranda about congestion, about torture, about every other thing that

817
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: you could imagine. There. We brought issues because we realized

818
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: that the government was giving enough money for our food,

819
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 1: which food we are not getting. So we said, this

820
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: is not the problem of the government. It's an institutional problem.

821
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: So we demanded for what was rightfully ours. Luckily, by

822
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: that time the new president had come in the prisons

823
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: department had moved from punishment to correction and rehabilitation.

824
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 3: I mean, you're a big guy. You're much bigger than

825
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 3: an average person. So getting so little nourishment in there,

826
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 3: did you lose a ton of weight? No?

827
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: I think I could have lost some weight, but I

828
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: always believe it's all in the mind. I learned to

829
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: appreciate whatever I have. I don't go for the big

830
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: things in life. I just try to live within my

831
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: jacket and just appreciate every little thing I get. Are

832
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: very appreciative, by the way, and I work within that budget.

833
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,439
Speaker 1: The good thing is that by doing that, I don't

834
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: stress myself out like I can't get this and this

835
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:11,839
Speaker 1: and that. I just live and appreciate whatever it is.

836
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:13,959
Speaker 1: And contrary to what you might think, I don't eat much.

837
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing. Well that's a good thing for that too.

838
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 3: So were you in that same prison for eighteen years. No.

839
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: After one month, I was taken to another security prison

840
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,360
Speaker 1: in a place called Naivasha. Now that's the biggest prison

841
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: in the country. In fact, I think in East Africa.

842
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: It's massive, it's got a football field inside it. But

843
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: that's one prison that's feared by many people because the

844
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 1: wind blows from the Rift valley into the prison and

845
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: so if you don't have anything to cover, you'd get cold,

846
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 1: you'd get tuberculosis. And if someone visits you the first time,

847
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: they onlyn't want to come the second time because it

848
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: was so far removed from the road from the transport network.

849
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 1: So it's one of the most feared prisons back then,

850
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: but now it has the biggest school population of all

851
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: prisons in Africa. Yeah, it's become a model institution. The

852
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: new reforms that were brought by the Kenya Prison Service.

853
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: They first accepted the admit mistakes. They had a paradegm

854
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: shift and we thank the former Vice president who was

855
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: made in charge of the prison's docket. Prisons in Kenya

856
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,800
Speaker 1: public institutions. So he said he wanted to see prisoners

857
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: treated humanly. We started having that chance and that's how

858
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 1: we started now getting more hours out in the sun.

859
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: Torture became outlawed and inmates had a chance to go

860
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: to school, land skills, get visitors. We have an open

861
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: door police in our prisons in Kenya, and we could

862
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: manage all that I learned at in prison. I started

863
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: training my colleagues in art. I formed the organization I

864
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 1: ran now while I was on death row, and we

865
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: started doing activities outside prison, but organizing from prison, and

866
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: people thought that we were so well funded. I didn't

867
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: have any money. What I did was design T shirts,

868
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: designed cards, sell them to my fellow inmates, sell them

869
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: to the other guys out there, use those proceeds to

870
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: run the crimes awareness campaigns. That word denounced it and

871
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: I just thank God because there was so much ownership

872
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 1: of the process that being in prison now didn't become

873
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,720
Speaker 1: a bud and it became an opportunity to invent myself

874
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: and to find myself. I forgive the people who took

875
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: me there. I removed all the beatterness and said, I

876
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:23,760
Speaker 1: have to live my life and if that's the purpose

877
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: I have, and since I believe I'll go home. At

878
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: one point every single day I believe I was going

879
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: to go home, then I had to start doing things differently.

880
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 3: Well, that's just I don't even know what to say.

881
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:40,839
Speaker 3: I mean, it's so remarkable that you exist in this

882
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 3: state of the only way I can describe it as grace.

883
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 3: I've never heard anybody describe it quite the way you

884
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 3: just did. But it's always so remarkable for me just

885
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 3: to be in the presence of somebody like you who

886
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 3: has found this. You know what, I guess you could

887
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 3: call it the meaning of life which allowed you to survive, really,

888
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 3: because otherwise you probably would have died in there.

889
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 1: I totally agree there. I mean, in prison you have

890
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: number one, you have to let go. You have to

891
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 1: let go of all bitterness. You have to let go

892
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,720
Speaker 1: of assuming that life is the same, and you justus

893
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: and recalibrate through that life. You don't become part of

894
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 1: that life. It's there, but you live your life in

895
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: that situation so that it doesn't get really into you

896
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: and you feel like it's a punishment. You get to

897
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,919
Speaker 1: learn to coexist with your fellow people. I mean, it's

898
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:27,919
Speaker 1: like a United Nations. You're meeting all kinds of people

899
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: that may some very wonderful people. In prison. It's not

900
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,479
Speaker 1: just about the struggles of being in prison. Wrong Fully

901
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: convicted people are going through what's out here. There are

902
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 1: worse prisons out here than what we go through in prison.

903
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: People addicted and close down to drugs in their own world,

904
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: they can't come out of that. My prayer always when

905
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: I work with the youth to get them out of

906
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: crimes and drugs is that they just find purpose wherever there.

907
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:53,879
Speaker 1: So that's what I started doing in prison. You don't

908
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: believe this, is Jason, but when you're on death row,

909
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 1: when we're getting that small amount of food, we mobilized

910
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: all the fifty two thousand inmates in Kenya to forget

911
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: their meals and to donate to people in Kenya who

912
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:07,760
Speaker 1: were dying of hunger. And people like, are you guys

913
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: doing this so that you can be reacent? We said, no,

914
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:12,320
Speaker 1: we are eating food in prison and we're not working.

915
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 1: We're just sleeping. We eat and sleep, so why can't

916
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: we just do something different? And we came together as

917
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: inmates and I was taken from prison. That's the first

918
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: time I got out to walk in the streets of

919
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: Nairobi without handcuffs, and I was taken to the office

920
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 1: of the Vice President. I made the donation on behalf

921
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: of my colleagues and from there we just felt we

922
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: had to grow. So the different programs that were brought

923
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: the leadership of the Kenya prison service helped us change that.

924
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 1: The judiciary was revamped, the corrupt guys were taken out

925
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: with seeing changes, and now we were using the law

926
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: now to help overturn most of these things. I was

927
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: writing appeals and petitions for my colleagues in prison last year,

928
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: the year before I left, that was twenty sixteen. I

929
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:56,240
Speaker 1: got six gays out of death row and I hadn't

930
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: even cleared my law decree, you know, But that was

931
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: just we learned how to write those things after so

932
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: many years. You just learned naturally to some of this stuff.

933
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:07,839
Speaker 1: Look at the evidence, look at the case. Slow, make

934
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: your presentations in court. Crazy enough, Some of the cases

935
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: I've used in my pleadings were influenced by what the

936
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: Nuisance Project is doing in America. I've always been a

937
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 1: great fan of the Nuisance Project. They intend to set

938
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:21,720
Speaker 1: up something similar in my country.

939
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 3: You studied the law, well, you got your college degree

940
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 3: in prison, and then you studied the law, and now

941
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 3: you're about to graduate from the University of London Law School,

942
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 3: which is a part of the story that we have

943
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 3: to get to. But before that, how did you get

944
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 3: released or.

945
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen August, my son was going to graduate.

946
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: They were clearing the university. And one thing that had

947
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: really killed my mood in prison was that I was

948
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,280
Speaker 1: not able to be there for my kids' primary school graduation,

949
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 1: high school graduation, and now they had their final graduation

950
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:58,239
Speaker 1: in university. And I felt that if I was not

951
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 1: going to attend that, then had no business getting out

952
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: of prison. It came to that. That's when I was depressed,

953
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 1: just to feel that my kids had grown without me.

954
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: They had not seen me, they had had visits from

955
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: other families, they'd seen other kids being visited, and they

956
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: couldn't have their dad there. They couldn't tell their colleagues

957
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: in school that their dad is in prison for allegedly

958
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: murdering their mum. I mean, I felt that those kids

959
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,280
Speaker 1: dissolved me to be there with them for their graduation.

960
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: So I took a lip of faith and wrote to

961
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 1: the President of the country, President Kinata, and told him,

962
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: your excellency, I was chilged with this offense of murder.

963
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 1: I still maintained my innocence. I don't agree with the decision,

964
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: but as a law abiding citizen, I respect it. And

965
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: so the position is that my son, my kids are

966
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: going to graduate and I need to be home with

967
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 1: them for their graduation, So could you use your prerogative

968
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:50,320
Speaker 1: to set me free?

969
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 3: And he did, he did in October. How did you

970
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:54,720
Speaker 3: get the news?

971
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: I was assisting? Like in prison, I was always in

972
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: the documentation office, helping appeals and process the appeals for

973
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 1: the inmates. And then those is breaking news. So one

974
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,280
Speaker 1: of the awardens in the office said, Pitt, something has happened.

975
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: Guys are being released. I mean, the president has just

976
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: signed an order releasing guys, and we know you must

977
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: be in there. And then I was like, people have

978
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: been released before, but have never been there. I mean

979
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 1: every other year people tell me, Peter, you're going home.

980
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: You don't deserve to be here. But it never happened.

981
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 1: But I just felt in my spirit at that time

982
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: like the time has come. So I left the documentation

983
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 1: office and went to my cell. By the time I

984
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 1: was leaving, I was living in my own cell, though

985
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: it didn't have a toilet, but it was a different block.

986
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 1: We're only eleven of us in that cell. It's a

987
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: privilege I was given by the office and child. So

988
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 1: I went down to my cell and just prayed and

989
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: told God, if it's your will, let it be done,

990
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 1: and I just hang on there. Then an hour later,

991
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: the Commissioner General of Prisons drives in with the paw

992
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: of massy staff with this team. So I'm told you

993
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: have been called outside, so working out. The commissioner tells me,

994
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: you know what, he wrote a letter to the present

995
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: and he said you can go home. And it's such

996
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: an amiable person. He talks like it's just a joke.

997
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: So first I'm like, ah, but when I look at

998
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: the team he has with, then I have reason to believe.

999
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: After that, we are called to the hall and the

1000
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 1: names are read out, and when we're just about to leave,

1001
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: I called my daughter. I went to the office and

1002
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: called my daughter and told her, Whitney, I'm going home.

1003
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,320
Speaker 1: I'm coming home, And she was like, Dad, you always

1004
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,399
Speaker 1: like cracking jokes. I mean, I don't trust what you're

1005
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: telling me, so let someone else tell me. So I

1006
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: give the cops the phone and tell them tell this

1007
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: girl I've been released. And she says, no, I'll only

1008
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: believe when I see you. That's how stubborn my daughter is.

1009
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 1: And then she she goes like, okay, Dad, if I

1010
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: see you, then i'll believe. But I'm not telling anyone.

1011
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: And then the prison ward and tells us Pete and colleagues.

1012
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: You know, this is late in the evening. It's raining heavily.

1013
00:48:57,920 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: We'd like this thing to be covered by the media.

1014
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: So do you guys just mind spending an extra night

1015
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,399
Speaker 1: in prison? Then you go in the morning if you will,

1016
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: because it's for us sake that we don't know if

1017
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 1: we'll see you guys again, and we just wanted this

1018
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 1: story to come out, so we indulge them and to

1019
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: go and sleep.

1020
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 3: And so he spent an extra night in prison.

1021
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 1: I spent an extra night after release. Did you sleep, No,

1022
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: I slept. I slept very deeply. I was just thankful.

1023
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: I listened to a lot of music. I slept late.

1024
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 1: I slept at a round three. I just listened to

1025
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 1: lots of music because I had my laptop for studies

1026
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: in my room. And then I went to bed at

1027
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: a round three a m. So I woke up late.

1028
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 1: The other guys, I think they didn't believe, because they

1029
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: woke up at six. By six, they were in the

1030
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: office like we want to go home now, you know.

1031
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: So even just the moment the doors were opened out

1032
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 1: of the documentary office, asking to go home, and so

1033
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: my mom came in. My mom came in with those

1034
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: are one of the pictures I look at, and she

1035
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,800
Speaker 1: just hugged me and broke down. And I did not

1036
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,760
Speaker 1: to handle my mom crying. I mean it was deep.

1037
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 1: Then she started singing, thanking God, crying just on my chest,

1038
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:10,759
Speaker 1: and I was just trying to reassure them that also, okay,

1039
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: it's all over. But she still had this heavy hat,

1040
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: like why did it have to happen? For eighteen years?

1041
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,879
Speaker 1: She lost her good health because of that depression, and

1042
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: as we speaking right now, yeah, she's struggling with her health.

1043
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 1: But then God, she's strong.

1044
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 3: So then they take you and your mom and they

1045
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 3: and they.

1046
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,799
Speaker 1: Passed through the office of the African Prisons Project just

1047
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 1: to say hi. And then after that we go over

1048
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: to my sister's place, who had come with my mom.

1049
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: And now my daughter still doesn't come. She still doesn't

1050
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: believe that I've been released. And I've called both my

1051
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 1: daughter and my son. So as I'm leaving because I

1052
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 1: had to take a de tour and we used a

1053
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 1: long route because of traffic, it was around three o'clock,

1054
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:00,800
Speaker 1: I call a friend of mine very close friend of

1055
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: mine and a mental of mine, and I tell him, Carol,

1056
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:07,840
Speaker 1: you know what, I've been looking for you, but I

1057
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 1: don't know where to find you. So they know I

1058
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: was looking for your son because your son was supposed

1059
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 1: to go for an interview and I can't trace him.

1060
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:16,399
Speaker 1: So I tell him, Oh, I'll tell him I'm going

1061
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: to meet him. Then i'll tell him the next me,

1062
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: where are you at? Said, I'm home, Like, come on,

1063
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: stop kidding me, because people think when I was in prison,

1064
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 1: I liked cracking jokes just to keep people's moods on

1065
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: the app So he thinks it's another wild joke again,

1066
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 1: so he invites me to his office. Nice nice catch

1067
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: up is a childhood friend. After that, you go to

1068
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: my sister's place. Then by that time, my daughter started

1069
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: believing because now she's getting calls from different people, and

1070
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 1: she joins me at my sister's place where my son

1071
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:48,359
Speaker 1: was staying. My sister is my hero, Christine. She took

1072
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: good care of those kids for a while, for more

1073
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:54,760
Speaker 1: than eight years, you know, through high school teenage staff,

1074
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:56,839
Speaker 1: and she just took good care of them. And she's

1075
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 1: just sickling. She doesn't have the best of health, but

1076
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 1: She took them in like our own and really saw

1077
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: them through what they were going through.

1078
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 3: What was it like when you saw your kids for

1079
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 3: the first time in eighteen years as a free man?

1080
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 3: I mean, did you beat them both together at the

1081
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 3: same time?

1082
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: Now you know, I wasn't seeing them for the first time,

1083
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: and the prison is in Kenya. When the laws were changed,

1084
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 1: we editated for a law to be enacted called the

1085
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 1: Persons Deprived of Liberty Act, and in that act we

1086
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:28,800
Speaker 1: have parental visits, so four times in a year by law,

1087
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:31,719
Speaker 1: parents and visitors and friends can just come and hang

1088
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 1: out the way you know, you just hang out. You

1089
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: bring food from home, you see to make food from home.

1090
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:38,240
Speaker 1: You come and sit on with the family and staff

1091
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 1: a quality time. And other than that, you can also

1092
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 1: apply on special days like when my daughter came to

1093
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:47,800
Speaker 1: introduce her. Then boyfriend told me that I want to

1094
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,279
Speaker 1: introduce someone to you, and I asked for permission from

1095
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 1: the off Saint Gege. We were given a room we

1096
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: just hang out. So I'd already seen them from the

1097
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 1: time they were after the first eight years when they

1098
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 1: had been told that I was dead. I didn't tell

1099
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:02,879
Speaker 1: you that they grew up knowing that I was dead.

1100
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:05,520
Speaker 1: For the first eight years, the identity had been changed.

1101
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:07,879
Speaker 1: So when I met my daughter for the first time,

1102
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: my country recognized after eight years, and then when they

1103
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: went to first from ninth grade, now I started seeing them.

1104
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 1: They could come to prison and see me.

1105
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 3: Wait, so they grew up thinking you were dead.

1106
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 1: I told her I was dead.

1107
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 3: Wow by who?

1108
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: But the very people said I should be locked in

1109
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: the in laws Wow. But the good thing. I thank

1110
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: my mom in law because she's the one who told

1111
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 1: me Pete, I'm sorry, but I told your kids that

1112
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: you're dead, and they told her, Mom, I have nothing

1113
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 1: against you. I love you just like my mom. I

1114
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 1: don't always love you. Whatever you did, I don't know

1115
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: why you did it. I have nothing against you. And

1116
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 1: we just have to live their life. God as the

1117
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: loved us to live.

1118
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,720
Speaker 3: Amazing. So I do want to talk about the African

1119
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 3: Prisons Project. I was very honored and humbled to be

1120
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 3: asked by the founder of the African Prisons Project, Alexander McLean,

1121
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:00,919
Speaker 3: to come over to Uganda give a ted X talk

1122
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 3: inside a maximum security prison in Kampala. And of course

1123
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 3: it was during that trip that you and I met,

1124
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:11,760
Speaker 3: So can you share with our listeners what the African

1125
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 3: Prison Project is and what it does and how you're

1126
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 3: involved in it. Oh.

1127
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, The African Prisons Project was started ten years ago

1128
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: by Alexander. I met Alexander when I was in prison,

1129
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 1: and just about that time, I'd been invited by the

1130
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 1: Judicial Service Commission to go give my views on behalf

1131
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: of the inmates about revamping the judicial system. And so

1132
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,319
Speaker 1: when I went to that interview, I met all the

1133
00:54:37,360 --> 00:54:40,360
Speaker 1: top players in the criminal just system and the Attorney

1134
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: General then asked me are you a lawyer? Then I

1135
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,359
Speaker 1: told him no, I'm not a lawyer. They told me,

1136
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,319
Speaker 1: would you like to study law? I told him yeah,

1137
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 1: if you pay for me, sir, I'll gladly study. They said, Pete,

1138
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 1: we know what you have in you and we know

1139
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: what your motivation is to study, so we are going

1140
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,760
Speaker 1: to help you. You're going to pay how for your fees?

1141
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 1: And Alexander said fine. At African Prisons Project, we don't

1142
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 1: have a budget for education right now. We're not doing

1143
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: legal education. But if you have someone to pay for

1144
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 1: you have, I'll gladly pay for you the other half.

1145
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: That's how we started off in twenty twelve, ive went

1146
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 1: to university through the African Prisons Project in twenty thirteen,

1147
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 1: I had to be taken from prison to go to

1148
00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: my exams outside at the British Council, which is a

1149
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: great owner. Then the officer and Jire asked me, Pete,

1150
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 1: why are you doing this thing alone? And there's so

1151
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: many people are suffering and we need that help. And

1152
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 1: I got in touch with Alexander told him, come on,

1153
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:35,720
Speaker 1: could you try and get more guests to be supported

1154
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 1: in this course, And later on more people joined the

1155
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:44,719
Speaker 1: program and the inmates are being trained to be change makers.

1156
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 1: They're doing that in three prisons to the being trained

1157
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:50,279
Speaker 1: in law in Kenya three prisons in Uganda, I think

1158
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: it's zero, and they're being trained in law and paralegal

1159
00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: staff to assist their fellow inmates and also when they

1160
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:02,760
Speaker 1: go out since the Indealentin Society, so that's the project

1161
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: that goes there. After that. After my first year, I

1162
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: of course I graduated and after the first year, Alexander

1163
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 1: African Prisons Projects started paying for my fees at the

1164
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 1: University of London and the money because my gracious guest

1165
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:20,920
Speaker 1: hosts or supporters Justice Isaac will still giving me four

1166
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: hundred dollars per year. I use that to pay for

1167
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:25,879
Speaker 1: my children's school fees, and that's how my children went

1168
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: through school amazing, because I'd exhausted all my funds at

1169
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:35,400
Speaker 1: my trial. I mean so so, Justice Allah Isaac and

1170
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 1: Ahmed Nasir and Alexander helped get me on my feet

1171
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 1: to what I'm about to complete right now.

1172
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:49,279
Speaker 3: So Alexander MacLean is a hero of mine. I'm a

1173
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:54,399
Speaker 3: big supporter of his work, proudly. And he has been

1174
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 3: going for a long time now into one of the

1175
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 3: most hopeless places on Earth, some of the prisons in

1176
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 3: Kenya and Uganda, and I think other parts of Africa,

1177
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 3: and training people like Pete who's sitting in front of

1178
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,440
Speaker 3: me now in the law so that they can do

1179
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 3: exactly what you did, which is find a way to

1180
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 3: get yourself out and then in the process help other inmates. So, Pete,

1181
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 3: this story is absolutely remarkable. The tradition here is that

1182
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 3: at the end of each episode I like to just

1183
00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:30,440
Speaker 3: turn the mic over to the guest, in this case,

1184
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 3: you to share any further thoughts that you have with

1185
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 3: our audience.

1186
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Jason, Thank you for having to New York.

1187
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 1: It's a great pleasure. I didn't know I would even

1188
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 1: get a visa to come here, but I'm grateful that

1189
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: it happened. And here I've met wonderful people. I enjoyed

1190
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,600
Speaker 1: being with the Felex and Ruiz at the Gala. I

1191
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: just want to think the Innocence Project and I thank

1192
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: you and all the support you guys are given to

1193
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 1: that project. It's something also want to replicate in my country.

1194
00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:01,520
Speaker 1: I left the African Prisons Project and on my organization

1195
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 1: called the Youth Safety Our Initiative. We're focusing on getting

1196
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 1: the youth out of crime. We're focused on getting inmates

1197
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: or living prison to have something gainful to do. And

1198
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 1: as I'm speaking to you right now, we've assisted fifteen

1199
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 1: of our inmates open bank accounts. So we're doing social

1200
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 1: enterprises and means of reducing recidivism. I had a double

1201
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: treat on twenty eighth of April, the same day I

1202
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: was granted a visa. I also got a call from

1203
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: one of the biggest landowners in our country, Cana, and

1204
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:32,760
Speaker 1: we're going to put a re entry home there. Funds

1205
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,520
Speaker 1: allowing We're going to put the first halfway home in

1206
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:38,439
Speaker 1: a big conservancy where you can also watch game.

1207
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 3: That's amazing. And the name of the organization again.

1208
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 1: Youth Safety Awareness Initiative, and.

1209
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 3: How can people learn more and get involved.

1210
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:49,720
Speaker 1: You can go to www dot crimec poor crime c

1211
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 1: poor c r Ime Sipoa crime Cyper means crime is

1212
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:01,560
Speaker 1: not cool. So we used a local to reach out

1213
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 1: to the youth. That's what we started doing in prison.

1214
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: And when we go to register, they said they cannot

1215
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: register the name crime as an angio. So we got

1216
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 1: Youth Safety Awareness Initiative. But the brand name which is

1217
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:15,760
Speaker 1: registered brand name now is crime Syple. Crime is not.

1218
00:59:15,760 --> 00:59:19,840
Speaker 3: Cool, Okay, So the organization's Youth Safety Awareness Initiative. Go

1219
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 3: and visit and learn about this amazing work of this

1220
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 3: amazing man who's sitting here in front of me now,

1221
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 3: which is a miracle in and of itself, and join

1222
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,640
Speaker 3: me in supporting this work because this is in fact

1223
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 3: a global problem. We focus a lot on America on

1224
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:40,240
Speaker 3: wrongful conviction, but it's a global problem and there's so

1225
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 3: many people who need our help. So I want to

1226
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:48,200
Speaker 3: thank you Pete Uko for coming on the show and

1227
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 3: sharing your thoughts and your amazing journey with our audience.

1228
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 1: Thank you Jesseon for hosting me.

1229
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure.

1230
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you

1231
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.

1232
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 3: It really helps.

1233
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 2: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and

1234
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 2: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very

1235
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 2: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go

1236
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 2: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and

1237
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 2: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor

1238
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:27,320
Speaker 2: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is

1239
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:30,840
Speaker 2: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure

1240
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 2: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on

1241
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:38,360
Speaker 2: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm

1242
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 2: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association

1243
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:46,040
Speaker 2: with Signal Company Number one