Why was Jomo Kenyatta imprisoned during the Mau Mau uprising?

In 1952, Jomo Kenyatta was arrested and subsequently sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in 1953 for allegedly "managing the Mau Mau terrorist organization" during the Mau Mau Rebellion.12

Although the British colonial government sought to portray the trial as a criminal case, it was widely viewed as a political proceeding and has been described by many as a sham. Kenyatta, who served as president of the Kenya African Union, consistently denied these charges. He maintained that his political activities, which advocated for a peaceful transition to African majority rule, were not associated with the militant violence of the Mau Mau.231

The British authorities, alarmed by the uprising and the group's militant approach to land dispossession and political exclusion, targeted Kenyatta as a means to suppress the broader nationalist movement. Despite his imprisonment, Kenyatta remained a central figure in the struggle for Kenya's independence, eventually becoming the country's first prime minister in 1963.4231