Kenya - Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment - Death Penalty - January 2025
Country: Kenya
Partner: The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
Issues: Death Penalty
Mechanism: UN Committee against Torture
Report Type: List of Issues Prior to Reporting
Kenya has not carried out any executions since the late 1980s. Nonetheless, courts continue to
hand down death sentences without providing the heightened fair trial protections that
international standards require in capital cases. Additionally, authorities have violated the
prohibition against non-refoulement by forcibly repatriating people to countries that practice
the death penalty and engage in other human rights abuses. Kenya should formally abolish the
death penalty, commute the sentences of all persons on death row, revise laws to remove capital
punishment from the list of available sentences, and investigate and prohibit the forced
repatriation of foreign nationals to countries where they face the threat of the death penalty or
other serious human rights violations.