Life on an African Death Row

There can be few worse imagined places in the world than that of African Death Row. 

In a continent that is plagued by insurmountable suffering through the lack for the most basic and necessary needs for survival, food and water, one can scarcely attempt to visualise what an African prison must be like, let alone Death Row.

Institutional violence, rape and starvation are the primary realities in practically every part of African prison life. If you tried to conduct a league table for the country with the worst prisons you wouldn’t get anywhere. Angola, Libya or maybe South Africa could all be considered as top spot candidates? Or how about Somalia, Liberia or the Democratic Republic of Congo?

The point being that in every corner of every country in Africa there will be thousands of men, women and children living through the daily hell of prison life. And undoubtedly thousands of innocent people dying on an annual basis due to widespread poverty and mass corruption. So what happens then when someone who is innocent is charged and sentenced to death in an African prison?

Take for instance the case in Uganda, 1981, of Mr. Mpagi Edward Edmary and his cousin, Mr. Fred Masembe. They were both suddenly arrested and charged with the murder of a man named Mr. William George Wandyaka.

Straight away they were both sent to the notorious Luzira Maximum Prison situated just outside the capital Kampala where they slowly rotted away before being sentenced to death by hanging in 1982. At the time both men couldn’t speak any English, and they were visited only twice by their lawyer before they were found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by the state.

Having been sentenced at the time, it was incredibly difficult to get a sentence reversed and would have cost a huge amount of money.

The men on death row were living in constant fear of their lives, and if the noose didn’t get them there were plenty of other worries. Sadly Fred Masembe lost his life to malaria and sub sequential stomach complications in 1985. He was told that it would have been an unjustly waste of tax payer’s money to treat him at the time and that his life was worthless. The cost of treating him would have amounted to no more than the cost of the prison guard’s bus fare to visit a local doctor, but these basics were lacking and have always been the fine line between life and death throughout Africa for decades now.

Luzira Prison was well known in East Africa at the time for its ruthlessness and barbaric nature. Death Row inmates were required themselves to make the black hoods and the clothes for those next in line to be hung. By counting the clothes made the inmates would ascertain how many were next to be executed; worst of all, they had no idea of who it would be. Mpagi Edmary lived in abject daily fear as he and the others would hear the sound of the coffins being made inside the prison. Then at night the guards would come and take the next batch of men to their impending fate. During the next 4 years many inmates were hung directly above Mr. Edmarys’ cell. He even lost one of his cellmates to the gallows, something that will always haunt him.

Throughout this horrific ordeal Mpagi Edmary always maintained his innocence, along with his cousin. This would have fallen on deaf ears by most people until one day when the story would take a logical twist. The man they were both convicted of killing had been seen walking freely in the Jinja district of Uganda. This of course was not of any surprise to the defendant or his family, or it must be said to the local pathologist and police men who were bribed to falsely testify about this apparent murder. It is clearly less evident as to why exactly these charges were bought against the two men in the first place, but one can only suggest that this would have been due to financial gain, something quite common in Uganda, if not Africa. In 1989 the Attorney General proved that this case had been completely fabricated from start to finish with dramatic effect; one innocent man had died on death row from malaria, and another had been subject to the most hellish life for the past 7 years. It would have been like a daily dose of Russian roulette, but with 2 bullets.

Although it was now accepted that Mr. Edmary was completely innocent, it still took a further 11 years for him to be released by presidential pardon in July 2000. His family campaigned tirelessly for both men before, during and after the truth was revealed about the so-called  ‘victim’ (if anything the word ‘victim’ applies in this case only to Mr. Edmary and his cousin, Mr. Masembe, and their friends and family respectively). After 18 years on death row and 2 years on remand, Mr. Edmary was finally released back into the world.

Upon his eventual release Mr. Edmary came out without really possessing much bitterness. During his time inside he had learnt to speak English and taught fellow death row inmates how to read and write. He would later become a well respected campaigner against the death penalty in Uganda and U.N. member states. In a country that has a population of over 30 million, and poverty levels that remain high throughout the country, it would be acceptable to estimate that no more than 10% of those incarcerated would have access to the most basic of legal structures, even before considering the bail bonds set for relatively low level crime leaving thousands hovering in prison for longer on remand than their eventual sentence.  

This is just one case in point from a country in Africa, (in fact a slightly more stable one than those mentioned earlier) where police use minimal evidence (partly due to a lack of funds, but also education and training) to bring innocent men, women and children to court, where they stay for years unable to prove their innocence. The problem remains the same where ever you go. Lawyers do not have the correct facility to demand change and see the hierarchy that floats above them in the form of judges as a mountain too high to climb. The U.K. is famed for its legal training, assistance and case work theory. You have to wonder how many men, women and children are just as innocent as Mr. Edmary and Mr. Masembe. The problem is that the very thought of such a mountain still seems far too difficult to climb, for even the Europeans.

Unfortunately Mr. Edmary will never be able to retrieve the 20 years that he lost through no fault of his own. If the judges and all those that follow such hierarchy had any real understanding of simple human rights and the significance of investigation and case theory, there would be without a shadow of a doubt, fewer men, women and children behind bars in a continent that needs to start addressing simple legal practices. The most frustrating issue here is not the depths that systemic corruption and general misunderstanding bears, but more that it is still constantly ignored and accepted by the West.