Prison officials in Kenya have said that an inmate at the Kamiti prison in the capital, Nairobi has unprecedented graduated from Diploma in Law from the University of London distance programme.
Peter Ouko was said to be on death roll formally when he was convicted of murdering his own wife, a verdict he has contested and claimed was in error by the court.
He has been in prison for 16 years now and his appeal could only commute him from death row to life imprisonment.
Mr. Ouko followed the law course of the University of London online and graduated in Diploma in Common Law. The university authorities say he will now advance to further his education in higher law qualification.
Peter Ouko said he vowed to prove his innocence by gaining a law qualification to further contest the verdict to prove that he never murdered his wife and it was exciting meeting intellectuals when he was writing his final exam which was invigilated in Kenya by the British Council.
“I was amused to see some candidates who had prepared in better facilities and who had come driving big cars leave in a huff after a few minutes in the exam room,” Mr. Ouko said.
His graduation was attended by one of the senior judges in Kenya, Richard Mwongo who represented the chief justice at the occasion together with University of London’s authorities.
University of London’s director of undergraduate laws programme, Jenny Hamilton was quoted by local reporters as saying that Mr. Ouko showed high level of determination in accomplishing his dream.
“This prisoner is aware of his limitations to practice, but he had confidence that he would have a useful role to play in supporting civil society in his country”, she was quoted as saying.
The prison education programme was said to have been supported by a London-based charity organization-the African Prisons Project, which supports the welfare of prison inmates in Kenya and Uganda.
The University of London is said to be the world’s oldest provider of distance learning degrees dating back to the 19th century.
Nelson Mandela was said to have studied at the University of London’s external courses as an external student when he was in prison in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News
Writer’s Email Address: Adamsisska@googlemail.com
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