Nairobi — Thomas Cholmondeley had been scheduled to be released on Sunday, but since it is a weekend, the prison authorities decided to free him last Friday.

He quickly returned to his Soysambu Farm home where he will begin to rebuild his life after three years in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. Prison authorities insisted that he was not a beneficiary of presidential clemency but rather simply qualified for remission.

Mr Cholmondeley will be missed by the many friends he made at the prison and other inmates. Through his initiatives, their life had become more bearable than it was before his arrival.

The computer classes at the prison were entirely due to Mr Cholmondeley's initiative and some reformists at Prisons headquarters. After being convicted of manslaughter in the 2006 death of mason Robert Njoya and sentenced to eight months in prison on May 14, 2009, Mr Cholmondeley was allowed to work and move among the general population in the prison.

He found the wreck of a computer, and an idea was born - to get computer classes going again. Laptops were donated by his friends under the auspices of an organisation called Pledgebank.

Previously, he had also raised cash to connect the borehole by providing the pipes. It is said that it took about 40 minutes to raise the cash required when the appeal went out on the internet.

The pipes were carried in by an official of a welfare organisation known as Prisoners are People Too. After two months lying in the corridors of the prison, the pipes were finally installed.

Regular supply

From then on, the prison began to receive a regular supply of piped water. In the searches or prisoners in November 2008 that led to the death of an inmate, Mr Cholmondeley's laptop was confiscated, but Commissioner of Prisons Isaiah Osugo took note of his earlier application in October 2006 to obtain some computers for the prison and returned it to him in June 2009.

Through Facebook, Mr Cholmondeley inspired friends to buy additional second-hand laptops, and consignments began arriving at the prison gates. But the first batch was received with suspicion and was delayed by two weeks.

When the laptops were finally released, and Mr Cholmondeley began to teach the other inmates in his block, the prison authorities relented and subsequent computers were allowed into the prison without further ado.

Mr Cholmondeley's seeking the computers did not contravene any ethical standards because they were not paid for by him but rather freely offered donations that remain in the prison to be used by inmates after his release.

Mr Cholmondeley hopes supervised internet access will be introduced and used responsibly. But he fears public reaction to the scams and con games emanating from the unruly G Block may make the Internet idea hard to sell.

Mr Cholmondeley and some inmates also initiated two projects, "Crime Si Poa" (crime is bad) to campaign against crime and "Neti Legal" for legal assistance to inmates.

For the past three years that Cholmondeley had been at Kamiti, first on remand, inmates spoke of him with awe and admiration for the simple and normal life he led while in prison's detention block which he shared with six former King'ong'o prison warders.

Prison uniform

Although he always appeared in crisp and clean beige or blue suits at the Nairobi Law Courts when his case came up for hearing, Mr Cholmondeley wore a torn pair of khaki shorts and battered sandals like any other inmate. "He was a simple and likeable man within the prison. When he wanted to chat with other inmates, he would sit on a stone like others and fluently talk in Kikuyu or Kiswahili.

His knowledge and fluency in the local languages endeared him to other inmates and warders alike. He ate the same food with us and empathised with all inmates. Except for his skin colour, Mr Cholmondeley can pass for a typical Kenyan like any of us," one inmate, who once talked to the Sunday Nation at the High Court, said.