Murder, treason and armed robbery are capital crimes

Murder, treason and armed robbery are capital crimes.
Since 1987, Kenya has had a de facto moratorium on all executions because the government has bowed to international pressure.
In response to public demand at home, however, the death penalty remains on the statute books and the courts pass the death sentence on an almost daily basis.
In 2000 a parliamentarian motion calling for the abolition of the death penalty was rejected.
Kenyan prison officials claimed that at least 1,300 prisoners have been on death row in jails across the country for as long as 20 years because the president's office can't decide whether to hang them, pardon them or commute their death sentences to life imprisonment.
Courts in Kenya apply the death penalty to violent robberies with particular rigour.
An independent and reliable study circulated in diplomatic circles records 143 death sentences handed out between January 2000 and April 2001.