AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRINCIPAL Investigator with Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) Cosmas Batanyita has finally entered into a plea bargaining agreement with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to settle the 400m/- money laundering and corrupt transactions trial he was facing.
Senior Resident Magistrate in Charge of the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court, Godfrey Isaya, registered the agreement after Batanyika pleading guilty to one count of corrupt transaction and sentenced to either pay a 50,000/- fine or go to jail for three years having convicted him on his own plea of guilty.
The magistrate directed the accused person to comply with the terms and conditions of the agreement, including paying a total sum of 46m/- as compensation to the government, with 30m/- required to be paid immediately, while the remaining amount is to be settled within six months.
Batanyika also forfeited into government properties 2,000 US dollars and a plot situated at Chamanzi area purchased at 15.8m/-, an amount that he corruptly acquired in a transaction to destroy evidence in a tax evasion case he was investigating.
Initially, the PCCB Principal Investigator was facing a total of seven counts of money laundering and corrupt transactions involving about 400m/-.
However, after entering into the agreement, the DPP agreed to drop six other counts and remained with only one count.
Senior State Attorney Ladislaus Komanya, for the prosecution, presented the new charge before the Dar es Salaam Court on Friday after the DPP had issued consent and jurisdiction to the court to try the case, which had been filed under the Economic and Organised Crime Control Act.
The court heard that on February 10, 2019, at Saba Saba area in Temeke District, being a PCCB employee, Batanyika corruptly obtained an advantage of 20,000 US dollars from Faizal Jafferali Hasham as an inducement to destroy evidence implicating Hussein Gulamal Hashan with tax evasion.
Having been read over and explained to him, the principal investigator pleaded guilty. Thereafter, the prosecution went ahead to present a memorandum of facts showing how such offence was committed. Batanyika also admitted to all the facts presented.
It was at that point that the court proceeded to convict him on his own plea of guilty to the charge and imposed the sentence in question.
Before being sentenced, Advocate Tuli Kaundime requested the court to provide a lenient sentence to her client.
According to the lawyer, the accused person was a first offender and had remained in remand since his first arraignment on August 9, 2019. He further submitted that the accused pleaded guilty to save the time of the court and prosecution in conducting the trial and has family members who depend on him.
The prosecution had told the court that Batanyika was leading investigations on allegations of tax evasion levelled against Gulam Hasham.
In due course of his investigations, on February 9, 2019, the accused summoned the suspect to appear for interrogations at PCCB headquarters at Upanga area.
Instead of interrogations, the accused solicited from the suspect 200m/- so as to assist him to destroy the implicating evidence, of which the latter in response negotiated for 50m/- though the former did not get satisfied, but thereafter he allowed him to go and work on it.
On February 10, 2019 following various calls from the accused which were threatening, Hasham decided to send his nephew, Faisal Jafferali Hasham to deliver to the accused 20,000 US dollars as an inducement to destroy the investigation of tax evasion allegations, which were underway.
The matter, the prosecution said, was in relation to affairs of accused person’s principal, the PCCB. The accused acknowledged receipt of the money by calling back to the suspect.
On February 19, 2019 the accused went to a Bureau de Change for the purpose to conceal the illicit origin of the money.
Batanyika converted 7,000 US dollars to 16.1m/- and having obtained such money he proceeded to purchase a landed property at Chamanzi unsurveyed area at 15.8m/-.
Upon revealing the evil deal, an investigation was carried out, leading to the arrest and subsequent arraignment of the accused.
