Dar es Salaam: Lwakatare’s lawyers seek dismissal of DPP’s court application

Written by FAUSTINE KAPAMA.

LAWYERS representing opposition politician Wilfred Munganyizi Lwakatare on Monday filed at the Court of Appeal an objection, seeking dismissal of application lodged by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), challenging the nullification of terrorist charges against him.

Lwakatare, the Director of Defence and Security of the opposition Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), has advanced two grounds of objection to fault the application for which the DPP is asking the Appeals Court to call for records of the High Court and revise them.

In the objection, Lwakatare, through one of his lawyers, Peter Kibatala, is requesting the highest temple of justice in the country to dismiss the application in question because the DPP has not attached a copy of proceedings of the High Court, which is the subject for revision.

His lawyer also states in the grounds of objection that the affidavit in support of the DPP’s application was defective because it contains extraneous matters. Other lawyers in the matter are Prof. Abdallah Safari, Tundu Lissu, Nyaronyo Kicheere and Mabere Marando.

In his application, the DPP seeks the appeals court to examine records of the High Court for the purpose of satisfying itself as to correctness, legality or propriety of the ruling and orders made by Judge Lawrence Kaduri on May 8, this year.

“The Court be pleased to make a finding that since the respondents were yet to be called upon to plead to the charge, it was improper for the High Court to determine the validity of the provisional charge,” reads one of the grounds of the application. Respondents in the matter are Lwakatare and one Joseph Ludovick, who are accused persons in the first case to be instituted in the country as far as terrorist offences are concerned since the Terrorist Act was enacted in 2000.

The DPP is asking the Court of Appeal to find that on the grounds for relief sought by the respondents before the High Court, there was no prayer for “striking out” counts from the charge sheet lodged against them.

According to the DPP’s application, the appeals justices should also hold that there was no information filed against the respondents, which the High Court could have determined on its defects and the order for “striking out” some of the counts from the charge sheet was untenable in law. On May 8, this year, Judge Kaduri ruled that particulars of offences instituted against Lwakatare and Ludovick do not show elements of terrorism as the law required.

He explained that a charge that can set in motion the machinery of justice has to contain reasonable information as to the nature of the offence charged. The judge held, therefore, that there was an error in framing the charges against the accused persons.

“In order for the offences charged to be distinguishable from the Penal Code offences sufficient information to link the act with terrorist purpose should feature in the charge,” he ruled.

Source: http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/local-news/17947-lwakatare-s-lawyers-seek-dismissal-of-dpp-s-court-application