KENYA. CONDEMNED PRISONER APPEALS FOR ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY

Peter Kamau Ndung'u, a prisoner condemned to death, appealed to the Kenyan government to abolish the death penalty.
"Kenya being a God-fearing nation recognizing the sanctity of human life, being an active member of the modern global society and pursuant to our aspirations to be a model nation in this region, should abolish the death penalty," Ndung'u said.
The inmate at Kamiti Maximum Prison, Nairobi, said punishment should rehabilitate the offender, and not eliminate him.
"What are the effects of the death penalty on the victim, the society and the government? Does it punish, deter or reform?" he asked in an article published in The Consoling Eye, a newsletter of Consolata Shrine Parish, Nairobi.
"One of the greatest achievements of our times is the ability to tame all kinds of beasts. If man is capable of taming deadly man-eaters, how easily could the same tactics be applied to the less harmful, friendlier brother!"
"If a punishment is meant to deter, the subject always gets a second chance. [But] the death penalty lies nowhere near a deterrent since it destroys the subject."
He said countries that retained the death penalty had not contained the rate of crime. "It serves no good, and to quote Mahatma Gandhi, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," Ndung'u added.