In October 1952, Jomo Kenyatta and five others were taken from Nairobi to a remote courthouse in Kapenguria, near the Uganda border, to face charges of managing Mau Mau. The trial was a performance. The judge had been handpicked, the key witness was later revealed to have been bribed, and the outcome was never in doubt. But the British miscalculated. Kenyatta's seven-year sentence transformed him from politician to martyr. By the time he walked free in 1961, independence was inevitable, and he was the only man who could deliver it.