death-row convicts at the Kamiti Maximum Prison, Kenya...

death-row convicts at the Kamiti Maximum Prison, Kenya, appealed to the Government to be considered for pardon in the recently proposed plan to decongest jails. The prisoners said they should be given a chance to prove that they have reformed. 
One of the inmates of "Condemned A", a cell that houses death-row convicts said: "Here at 'condemned' we wait for only two things; for the President to pardon us, or for him to order that we be executed."
"Already being on death row and serving over 10 years in jail is enough punishment. Unless you go through what we have gone through while on death-row, you can never say you have truly reformed," said Francis Ferdinand wa Kamwere, a self-appointed spokesman of the inmates.
Earlier in the week, police chiefs expressed their concern over a plan to free 20,000 convicts from the country's crowded prisons, currently housing between 45,000 to 50,000 inmates.
The plan by Vice-President Moody Awori is to target petty offenders who are serving three years or less. The move is aimed at halving the number of prisoners, which is currently double the holding capacity of the jails.
According to the inmates, there was a big difference between prisoners on death-row and those jailed for petty offences. By the time they were taken to "Condemned A", the inmates had exhausted all chances of appeal and their fate was sealed. This, they said, was the main difference between a prisoner staring death in the face and the other who knows he or she has a chance of walking away free after six months or two years.
"A prisoner who has only stayed in jail for six months or even only a year, has not had enough time to rethink his life and reflect on what brought him to jail in the first place. This is why it is easy for them to become jail birds who are repeat offenders as opposed to us who have been here for years and have had time to thoroughly reform and re-think why we came to jail in the first place," added inmate John Ndegwa Njuguna who had served nine years at "condemned A".
Most of the inmates at "Condemned A" were hard-core prisoners convicted for serious crimes like murder and robbery with violence.
The cell, which is designed to hold only 50 inmates, now has 102 prisoners.
In 2003, the Government freed 28 death row inmates and transferred 195 from death-row to life imprisonment under presidential pardon.
The inmates claimed that none of the 28 had been re-arrested and thrown back to jail since their release.
"This is to show that we at "Condemned A" value what comes with liberty and we would not dare go back to committing the same crime that made us stare death in the face!" said another inmate Hassan Saidi Aoko. The prisoners lamented the psychological torture of being held in a cell next to the execution chambers and the nerve-wracking torment of wondering whether they would see the next day or they would be dragged to the gallows.