The remains of former freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi may finally be located in the grounds of Kamiti Prison after the british government released a 1957 file with information pointing at where he may have been interred.
The Kimathi file, handed to the family by the Chief Justice Willy Mutunga yesterday, has narrowed the Kimathi burial site mystery to 11 graves in Kamiti, one of which could yield his remains. It is now a matter of exhumation and DNA tests if Kenyans are ever to know where the freedom fighter was buried, after he was sentenced to death and executed on the morning of February 18, 1957.
His family yesterday appealed to President Uhuru Kenyatta to direct the prison authorities to locate and exhume the remains of the independence hero so that he can be given a befitting burial before the 60th anniversary of his death next February.
Kimathi’s widow Mukami Kimathi and some of her children made the appeal at the Supreme Court after they received the bulky file containing the trial proceedings which led to the freedom fighter’s hanging by the colonial government.
“I am asking the government to find his body. I am praying to God to help President Uhuru (Kenyatta), Chief Justice (Willy) Mutunga and the entire government to find Kimathi’s body so that he can be buried like a hero,” the frail looking Mukami pleaded.
Mutunga said the file has now settled the existing dispute on the specific place where Kimathi was hanged and buried. Some reports had suggested that the freedom fighter was hanged around the area where Outspan Hotel in Nyeri stands, while others insisted the execution was done at Kamiti Prison.
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