Ruth Kamande, the lady who was declared Lang’ata Women’s Prison beauty queen in 2016, has graduated with a degree in law.
Kamande was awarded her degree alongside her fellow inmates and wardens at the Kamiti Maximum Prison.
In her acceptance speech, Kamande reflected on her childhood admiration for a female lawyer who featured in a court documentary she loved.
This, according to her, fueled her ambition to become a lawyer. She also confidently expressed that she never imagined that she would achieve her dream under her circumstances.
“I never imagined I would achieve this goal under such different circumstances,” she said.
The prison beauty queen also expressed optimism saying the degree offers her an opportunity to rewrite her story.
“When I was incarcerated, I was heartbroken. It was my first interaction with prison. I had never seen or set my eyes on the Kenyan constitution. We were asked if we would love to know more about our law, so we went for vetting by Justice Defenders and qualified to study law,” she added.
Life sentence
Kamande was convicted to life and is currently serving her sentence at the Lang’ata Women Prison after she stabbed her boyfriend Farid Mohammed 25 times in 2015.
In 2020, she filed an application at the Court of Appeal to prove that she had no intention to kill the victim.
In her application, Kamande explained that contrary to the government’s claims that she had previously seen some letters addressed to another woman by the deceased, she had peacefully reconciled with him.
Kamande also defended herself stating that she stabbed the deceased in self-defense as evident in the struggle depicted in the preliminary investigations.
The court however, rejected her appeal saying; “Upon close scrutiny of the evidence adduced, we cannot but conclude, as did the learned judge, that the appellant’s alleged defense of self-defense was unbelievable given the cogent and compelling evidence of the prosecution witnesses,” the judges ruled.
They also rejected her plea for a lenient sentence.
“In our view, the nature of injuries suffered by the deceased and admittedly caused by the appellant is a clear testimony that the appellant intended to kill, hence the offence of murder was proved beyond any reasonable doubt in regards to malice aforethought,” the judges added.
