In the early morning of 18 February 1957, Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi was executed by hanging at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison gallows until pronounced dead.

Before his execution, his wife, Mukami secretly drove to Kamiti prison. He told her that "I have no doubt in my mind that the British are determined to execute me. I have committed no crime.

My only crime is that I am a Kenyan revolutionary who led a liberation army... Now If I must leave you and my family I have nothing to regret about.

"My blood will water the tree of Independence."