JUDICIARY OF TANZANIA: APPEALS COURT ENDORSES DEATH SENTENCE FOR FOUR MILITIA MEMBERS

By Faustine Kapama-Judiciary

FOUR militia members, Jacob Mwashitete, Tito Mwaipungu, Ezekia Rungwe and Mussa Ngonya, are to be hanged to death for killing suspected habitual cow thief village mate, Salum Gambi, after attacking him repeatedly, chopping of private parts and burning his body.

This followed the decision of the Court of Appeal panel, led by Chief Justice, Prof. Ibrahim Hamis Juma, Justices Rehema Mkuye and Zepharine Galeba to dismiss the appeal under which the four killers, the appellants, had lodged to fault the High Court’s decision.

“We do not find merit in this appeal by Jacob Mwashitete, Tito Mwaipungu, Ezekia Rungwe and Mussa Ngonya. We dismiss it in its entirety,” the justices declared in their judgment delivered at Mbeya Court’s Registry recently.

During hearing of the appeal, the appellants had faulted the trial judge for, among others, convicting them on evidence marred with glaring contradictions, which was insufficient to prove the prosecution case beyond a reasonable doubt and for relying on unreliable evidence of three deceased’s wives.

They also blamed the trial judge for failing to analyse the evidence, totally ignoring the defence evidence, a mistake which led to a wrong decision. The appellants also faulted the trial judge for concluding that they attacked the deceased to death and cut off his private parts.

In their determinations of the appeal in question, the justices having gone through the record of evidence found no circumstances that may call for their interfering with the trial judge's finding on the credibility of the three prosecution witnesses, who are wives of the deceased.

Such witnesses, who were present at the crime scene, according to the justices, had ample opportunities to see, hear and interact with the crowd gathered at the scene of the crime and gave detailed account of what happened that day when their husband was violently killed.

“(……) these three witnesses gave a coherent, plausible and consistent narration of how their husband met his violent death. The three prosecution witnesses, who witnessed how the appellants attacked their husband, knew the attackers as fellow villagers,” they said.

The justices went on stating that the evidence of three wives of the deceased not only proves that the appellants physically caused their husband's death but also proved their intention to kill (malice aforethought).

One of the wives had testified how Mwaipugu used a club to hit her husband at the back of his head, leading to profusely bleeding. She also recalled how Mwashitete used a sword and slashed her husband on his back.

The witness also recalled to have seen Rungwe armed with a club, which he used to hit the deceased on the chin and saw how Ngonya used a machete to cut her husband on the head and cut three fingers off the left hand and she witnessed the humiliation of her husband when Ngonya cut off his private parts.

“(This witness) testified that the appellants beat her husband until he passed away. They collected dry grass and maize stalks (mabua) and burned the deceased,” the justice recalled the evidence by one of the deceased’s wives, as per the record of appeal.

They concluded that all the appellants used lethal weapons (machetes, swords, clubs and sticks) against the deceased and they directed their blows and assaults at vulnerable parts of the deceased's body (head, ribs and even slashed off his fingers and private parts).

“The appellants' conduct to burn the remains of Salum Gambi after killing him manifested their ultimate intention to kill,” the justices said.

They could, therefore, not believe the version of evidence which the Ward Executive Officer and Village Chairman fronted to defend the appellants, who had more than four hundred militia under their charge, but they failed in their duty to protect the deceased's life after arresting and tying him up with a rope.

It was alleged during the trial that on November 4, 2012 at Mbebe village in Ileje District of Mbeya Region (now Songwe Region), the appellants murdered Salum Gambi. The deceased, according to the record, was suspected to have stolen a cow.