Dar es Salaam: DPP opposes dropping of Lwakatare’s terror charges

Written by FAUSTINE KAPAMA.

THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has asked the Court of Appeal to call for records of the High Court and quash the nullification of terrorist charges against opposition politician Wilfred Munganyizi Lwakatare and Joseph Ludovick.

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

“The Court be pleased to make a finding that since the respondents (Lwakatare and Ludovick) 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.

The DPP is asking the Court of Appeal, the highest temple of justice in the country, to find that in 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 appeal 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, the Director of Defence and Security of the opposition Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) and Ludovick do not show elements of terrorism as the law requires.

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 a terrorist purpose should feature in the charge,” he ruled.

Following the decision, Lwakatare and Ludovick would face only one count of conspiracy to commit an offence filed under the Penal Code. Such count is bailable under the law. The case comes up for mention at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam on May 27.

Source: http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/local-news/17757-dpp-opposes-dropping-of-lwakatare-s-terror-charges