By FAUSTINE KAPAMA-Judiciary
THE High Court’s Corruption and Economic Crime
Division has ordered drug dealer Wolfgang Lwamtonga to remain behind bars for
25 years for trafficking in heroin hydrochloride weighing 2.49 kilograms, which are dangerous narcotic drugs.
Judge Elinaza Luvanda imposed such sentence against
the accused person recently after holding that the prosecution proved the
economic case beyond reasonable doubt having taken into consideration the
evidence tendered by witnesses.
“Therefore, the accused is found guilty
and is convicted for the offence of trafficking in narcotic drugs,” the judge ruled.
Before imposing sentence,
the prosecution led by Senior State Attorney Clamence Kato had asked the court
to have the
accused person given a deserving sentence.
The trial
attorney told the court that imposing severe sentence was essential as narcotic
drugs have adverse effects to the entire community. On the other side, Advocate
Ole Mkulagwa for the accused had pleaded for lenient sentence.
He submitted that
his client was a first offender, has been in custody for four years and he was
young, thus the nation still needs him for economic development. The counsel
further argued that the accused person has dependents, notably a wife and a
child, who both depend on him.
After
considering the submissions by both parties, the judge was of the view that the
accused persons deserved a lenient sentence and to be accommodated under
Tanzania Sentencing Manual for Judicial Officers, which stipulate a minimum of
twenty years and maximum of thirty years to the offender.
According to
section 15(l) (c) of the Drugs Control and Enforcement Act No. 5 of 2015 as
amended, the penal for the offence under which the accused person was charge
with is life imprisonment.
However, Judge
Luvanda took into consideration of the Tanzania Sentencing Manual for Judiciary
Officers, which scale down to 30 years maximum and 20 years minimum and the
submissions presented by both parties relating to mitigation and aggravating factors.
“In view of the
fact that the accused is a first offender, he is sentenced to 25 years
imprisonment,” he declared. Before reaching into such conclusion, the judge
evaluated the evidence tendered by both parties into trial and was satisfied
that the offence in question was proved beyond reasonable doubt.
The counsel for
the accused had submitted, among others, that prosecution witnesses gave
contradictory evidence in relation to the colour of the narcotic drugs, which
were allegedly seized from the bag of his client wrapped in two packets.
Judge Luvanda agreed
that it was true that one witness said the powdery substance in both packets
was off white; another said it was milk colour; two other witnesses said it was
cream colour; while the other witness said the drugs in question were in brown
colour.
“To my opinion
off white, milk colour, cream and brown connote and portray the same colour. To
be precisely there is no material contradictions between the colours mentioned
above,” the judge said.
The Advocate had
also submitted that the information was incurable defective on account of
failure to state clearly kind of trafficking in narcotic drugs, citing section
1 of the Drugs Control and Enforcement Act No. 5 of 2015 and sections 132,
135(c) (ll) of the Criminal Procedure Act, to support his position.
In his judgment,
the judge had this to say, “With due respect to the learned defence Counsel
apart from a fact that his argument is misconceived for raising an argument of
defectives of the information at the verge of closing submission which amount
to a game of hide-and-seek.”
The prosecution
had alleged that on July 22, 2018 at Julius Nyerere International Airport
(JNIA) Terminal Two within Ilala district in Dar es Salaam region, the accused
person trafficked in y heroin hydrochloride weighing 2.49 kilograms.
Facts show that one
July 22, 2018 one security officer at JNIA on a night shift at the scanning
machine (for x-ray baggage) for departure (passengers) noted when the accused
bag was passing at the x-ray showed suspicious image of something like a
substance on the edge of both sides of a bag.
He summoned another
officer who also confirmed those images on the screen machine being doubtful.
Thereafter, the two officers let a bag to pass at the x-ray machine, which was
immediately collected by the accused person.
One of the
officers confirmed by asking the accused person if the bag belongs to him, then
asked to inspect using hands and the accused acceded to the demand. The officer
inspected but those images seen on the screen were not detected by physical
hands inspection.
Having removed
all clothes inside a bag, the officer then took an empty bag to the x-ray machine,
re-screened it where those images were still visible in the empty bag. The two
officers summoned an Assistant Superintended of Police (ASP).
Such police
officer conducted search in the bag which was doubtful for containing
suspicious substance, where he opened its zip, inside there was another bag,
removed it, but nothing was found after being inspected.
The officer inspected
a large bag and detected aside on both sides of that bag there was something
and there was a piece of cloth or patch, was not part of the bag, which was
fixed or mend by sewing inside in a way that one could not know or discover
what was contained or covered inside.
He pierced a
hole on the left side of that bag and saw a packet wrapped by khaki sellotape.
The officer thereafter pierced a hole on the right side of that bag saw another
packet resembling the first one also wrapped by khaki sellotape.
The police
officer drilled those two packets, poured substance of powder form milk colour
and seized those two packets which contained substance of powdery form. He pierced
the two packets using sharp object saw something like flour brown in colour
presumed to be narcotic drugs.
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