Rot in prisons exposed

A deep and rich hearty laughter booms from the pool table at a far corner of a cosy bar in Naivasha town.Nearby, men and women enjoy their drinks as they converse watching the pool game.

Standing at the pool table holding a stick is a clean shaven stocky man wearing a short, designer sandals and a white T-shirt. He is Fai Amario, a controversial Naivasha businessman who was recently freed from prison.

He is enjoying the freedom he missed for the four years he was behind bars.

Donning a gold watch and a matching chain hanging from his neck, the Starehe Boy’s Centre alumnus relishes the moment.

It is barely a year since he walked out of jail. But he says he is still traumatised by his experience in jail.

Amario was jailed on August 28, 2004, following charges of robbery and being in possession of stolen vehicles. He was set free on December 13, last year on presidential pardon.

Jail term

Amario had been jailed for nine years on the first charge and three and half years for the second charge. "I appealed and won against the nine year jail term. The man who claimed that I had stolen his car didn’t have any documents of ownership," he explains.

Though he was set free, he is still proceeding with an appeal on the second case to clean his criminal record. Reflecting on his suffering in prison, Amario shakes his head and says: " This is one place where anyone should avoid if they can."

Amario says life in Kenyan jails is the worst life that any human being can be subjected to. He says Kenyan jails are the breeding grounds for hardened criminals, mainly among poor inmates.

"The biggest mistake ever done by the prison management is to mix petty offenders with hardcore criminals," he explains. He says for one to survive in Kenyan prisons, one only needs to have money.

"Our prisons are the most corrupt places. One can get literally anything from cigarettes, bhang and even illicit brews if you have money," he adds.

He considers himself lucky that he had money when he went to jail. Amario confesses that he spent Sh10,000 per week on food and other needs in prison as he could not rely on prison’s food.

"Low quality flour is used, beans are openly sold and getting sugar in the prison is a dream.Warders collude with the cooks and the inmates in charge of blocks to sell them and keep the cash," he says.

He says this has been a business venture for some inmates adding some ‘industrious’ one’s leave jail rich with money earned from selling food to inmates.

"The warders select hardcore criminals who know how to go about the business of fleecing fellow inmates as in charge of blocks," he says.

Amario says wives of some of the inmates in the ‘kitchen department’ visit the prisons every week to collect cash from their husbands for school fees and food for their families.

"So huge are these collections that once released, some inmates in the kitchen break the law deliberately so that they are returned to jail. They make more money while in jail than they can make when out," he says.

Amario says a stick of Rooster cigarette goes for Sh5. To buy a piece of meat, he says, one needs three pieces of the cigarette.

"Beer, bhang and cigarettes are sneaked in by warders who get a commission from the inmates," he says.

Despite the congestion in jail, Amario says, cooking in the cells is common.

He says inmates use anything from plastic buckets to papers and even coils to cook.

It, therefore, demands that one keeps money at all times so as to get quality food and access to mobile phones. But where do they keep this cash?

"One has to have two to three ‘banks’ where you can withdraw the cash anytime you need it," he says.

"The ‘bank’ refers to hiring trusted inmates who keep the money in their anal canals. If the notes are many one requires many ‘banks’," he adds.

Amario says homosexuality is rife in jail. However, he says it affects only those willing to participate.

He says it is mainly practiced by those inmates in charge of blocks since they have access to money, the best food and even private cells.

"The fresh and young inmates are picked up on the first day and taken to the worst cells which have crazy people," he says.

Frightened and in desperation, the ‘in charge’ approaches them the following day and offers them the best food, blankets and clean water, he says. After some days of lavish treatment, he adds, the inmates are told that nothing is free and they have to reciprocate.

"Unakalia uchumi (you are sitting on economy), is the key word and with time they give in," he explains.

Homosexuality

"Some people live like a wife and a husband. The ‘wives’ get literally everything they need from the ‘husbands’," he says.

In prison, one can also get the best lawyers who draft appeals for fellow inmates at a cost.

Amario, who has served in six jails in the country, terms King’ong’o Prison as the worst and Shimo la Tewa the most humane.He says the officer in charge at Shimo la Tewa, Wanini Keriri, who once served in Lang’ata is the only prison boss who understands the inmates’ needs.

"I have never spoken to her but during my time in Shimo la Tewa prison, I saw a lot of difference from her unlike in other prisons," he says.

He has served in Naivasha, Kamiti, Industrial area and Nakuru prisons.

Amario sums up the prison life as a "living hell". He says prisons are no longer places of shaping wrong doers but a breeding ground for criminals.