In the Asylum towards the end you need to free the prisoners. When im confrontd by that guy thats supposed to free the prisoners. I kill him and im stuck now, my last save was when i started the maze part and i dont feel like doing the whole thing over again. I dont seem to be able to find any items that he dropped so i cant get the key needed to open the doors

As a last resort, try hacking the guy back into the game with the create creature code.

And what would you do, my ingenious friend? Start the game again from scratch?

There is also a key on him if I remember right.

Oh well, if anyone is still interested in the answer to the original question, it's perfectly acceptable to kill the bastard who keeps the prisoners. Just pick up his stuff and go free the prisoners yourself. Anyways, you can crush Irenicus without releasing his prisoners. Just go down and do to him what you like to do to bigbeggar.