"In 2018, Kamande was sentenced to death after a court found she had stabbed her boyfriend, Farid Mohammed, 25 times at the home they shared in Nairobi in September 2015. The case was widely covered by the press in Kenya and abroad, and on social media. People expressed horror, shock and disbelief; how could such a softly spoken, petite and pretty 21-year-old woman commit such a brutal murder?"
"Kamande, 30, a diminutive figure in a stripy black and white tunic dress, graduated with a University of London LLB law degree in 2024, and works with incarcerated women. I used to admire lawyers very much, she says. It impressed me when I saw them in movies fighting big cases, but also for people in society who are marginalised. I didn't know that one day, in very difficult and unusual circumstances, I would become one."
Ruth Kamande is imprisoned at Lang'ata maximum-security women's prison in Nairobi after being convicted for the 2015 stabbing death of her boyfriend. She was sentenced to death in 2018; her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2023 amid wider commutations. Kamande graduated with a University of London LLB in 2024 while incarcerated and now works assisting other incarcerated women with legal cases. She declines to detail the circumstances that led to the killing and hopes to represent herself at a retrial. Kenya retains the death penalty for certain offences, though no executions have occurred since 1987.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]