Capital punishment has been a legal penalty in Kenya since before its independence, and continues to be so under Kenyan law. No executions have been carried out in Kenya since 1987,[1] when Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo Okumu, leaders of the 1982 coup d'état attempt, were hanged for treason.[2]
Presidents have on occasion commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment, and thereby releasing all inmates from death row, most recently in 2016. There is no current policy to abolish the death penalty.[3]
Despite the lack of executions, death sentences are still passed in Kenya. In July 2013, Ali Babitu Kololo was sentenced to death for his role in the murder and kidnapping of two British tourists,[4] and in 2014 a nurse received a death sentence after being convicted of carrying out an abortion on a woman who subsequently died[5] although her sentence was eventually reversed by the court of appeal in Kenya