THE Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam has sentenced Chadema Chairman Freeman Mbowe and eight other senior officials to either pay fine totaling 350m/- or go to jail for 60 months cumulatively for sedition, rioting and unlawful assembly.
Principal Resident Magistrate Thomas Simba imposed such sentence in the judgment delivered for almost five hours after convicting the political leaders of 12 out of 13 criminal charges they were facing.
He ruled that the prosecution, led by Principal State Attorneys Faraja Nchimbi, Senior State Attorneys Wankyo Simon and State Attorneys Jacqueline Nyantori and Salim Msemo, sufficiently proved beyond reasonable doubt that all accused persons committed the offences.
Apart from Mbowe, other convicts are the former party’s Secretary General Vicent Mashinji, John Mnyika, the newly elected Secretary General and Salum Mwalimu, who is Deputy Secretary General (Zanzibar).
Others are Peter Msigwa, Member of Parliament (MP) for Iringa Urban, Halima Mdee (Kawe), John Heche (Tarime Rural) Ester Bulaya (Bunda Urban) and Ester Matiko (Tarime Urban).
During the trial, the prosecution called eight witnesses to prove the charges of unlawful assembly, rioting after proclamation, raising discontent and ill-will for unlawful purposes, sedition and inciting commission of offences committed between February 1 and 16, 2018, in the city.
Delivering the sentence, the magistrate took into consideration the mitigating factors that the accused persons were first offenders and that they have spent considerable time to attend the trial.
However, Magistrate Simba was quick to point out that the offences committed were very serious.
According to him, the words uttered by the accused persons during the by-election campaign of Kinondoni Constituency, as was submitted by the prosecution, were very serious, seditious and aimed at promoting the ill feeling of the community in general.
“Considering the position the accused persons are holding in the society, we expected to be good examples in the society and follow the law, but they turned out to be the opposite. They deserve to be severely punished in order to serve a lesson not only to them but even to others,” he said.
The magistrate added; “The seditious words given by the accused at the political rally were very serious. Things could have been worse had the situation been controlled by the police. This should be a warning. We cannot allow our country to be exposed to such a dangerous zone.”
He rejected the line of defence given by 15 defence witnesses, including the accused persons led by Advocate Peter Kibatala that the words they had given were of political nature during elections.
The magistrate ruled also that part of such defence evidence supported the prosecution’s case.
Referring to different decided cases, the magistrate pointed out that it was dangerous to allow the accused to give his own interpretation of such words of what he or she meant at the time they were given, but have to be interpreted by the court itself by their natural meaning.
Having so concluded, the magistrate sentenced each accused person to either pay 10m/- or go to jail for five months on the second count of unlawful assembly.
The prosecution alleged in such count that on February 16, 2018 along Kawawa Road at Mkwajuni area, being assembled with intent to carry out a common purpose, jointly and together, all accused persons conducted themselves in such a manner as to cause a fear of breach of peace.
In the count of rioting, the magistrate also sentenced each convict to pay 10m/- or go to jail for five months.
The prosecution had told the court that with more than 12 other persons not in court, having assembled began to conduct unlawful demonstration with intention to invade the office of the Director of Kinondoni Municipal council, thereby causing the breach of the peace and terror of the public.
On the offence of rioting after proclamation, the court also ordered each accused to pay 10m/- in that having riotously assembled, in disobedience of proclamation given by a police officer, the accused persons failed to disperse and continued to take part in the riot.
Thereby, according to the prosecution, the accused persons breached the peace and terrifying the public culminating in the death of National Institute of Transport (NIT) Student, Akwilina Akwiline Baftaa, and injury of two police officers, Police Constable Fikiri and Corporal Rahim Msangi.
According to the prosecution, on the same day at Buibui grounds, while addressing Kinondoni residents at a public meeting, Mbowe, Mdee and Heche made statements likely to raise discontent and promote feelings of ill-will amongst the inhabitants of the United Republic of Tanzania.
The prosecution alleged further that Mbowe, in related offences, made seditious statements with the intention of bringing hatred and contempt to the citizens of the United Republic of Tanzania against the lawful authority of the government.
