Court accused of delaying Ponda case appeal

THE Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam is delaying the prosecution to lodge its appeal against acquittal of Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda and 49 co-accused persons on charges involving invasion of a plot at Chang’ombe area in Temeke District.

Senior State Attorney Tumaini Kweka told the ‘Daily News’ yesterday that the court has not yet supplied to the prosecution typed copy of proceedings and the judgment of the case to enable them decide whether to continue prosecuting the appeal in question or not.

“Immediately after delivery of the judgment in May last year, we lodged a notice of appeal and applied for being supplied with a copy of proceedings.

Since then, nothing has been done,” said Mr Kweka, who is the prosecutor in charge at the Court. For that matter, he said, the prosecution would not lodge any appeal or deciding otherwise before being supplied with such essential documents, which are required for either processing memorandum of appeal.

On May 9, last year, the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court set free Sheikh Ponda, the Secretary of the Council of Islamic Organization and 49 others on charges they were facing, but convicted the Muslim Sheikh of only one count of forcible entry out of five against him. Resident Magistrate Victoria Nongwa gave him a suspended sentence of 12 months.

Sheikh Ponda and his co-accused were facing counts of conspiracy to commit an offence, forcible entry and detaining, stealing and inciting the commission of offence.

Such crimes related to a plot at Chang’ombe Markas area in Temeke District of which the accused persons were alleged to have committed between October 12 and 16, 2012. In her judgment, the magistrate noted that the plot in question was in dispute.

The court was told that the Muslims Council of Tanzania (Bakwata) exchanged the plot with Agritanza Limited, which had offered a 40 acre plot at Kisarawe for the purpose of constructing a university.

But, according to the magistrate, a section of Muslims claims that what was done by Bakwata was wrong. She, therefore, directed the parties involved to refer the matter to appropriate courts for determination and faulted the procedure adopted by Ponda to reclaim the plot by force.

In respect to other counts, the magistrate expressed her regret for what she described “poor investigations” conducted by the police in the case and the prosecution failed to prove them beyond reasonable doubt against all the accused persons because of that.

She noted that during defence hearing, the accused unveiled suspicious matters, which suggested that they were in one way or another involved in commission of the offences.

Had proper investigations been carried out, she said, all accused person would have been convicted. During the trial, the prosecution called 16 witnesses, while 53 testified for the defence.

The prosecution had alleged that at unknown date in the city, all accused persons conspired to commit an offence. On October 12, 2012, at Chang’ombe Markas area in Temeke District, in a violent manner and without colour of right, the accused persons entered a piece of land belonging to Agritanza Limited in order to take possession thereof.

“All accused between October 12 and 16, 2012 at Chang’ombe Markas area within Temeke District, without colour of right and in manner likely to cause breach of peace did hold possession of land lawful occupied by Agritanza Limited,” the prosecution further alleged.

It is claimed also that within the same period and place, they stole various building materials, including 1500 bricks, 36 tonnes of gravel, Iron bars, all valued at 59,650,000/-, property of the company.

Ponda was charged alongside another accused person Mukadamu Abdallah Swalehe with an additional count of inciting others to commit an offence. The prosecution had told the court that the duo committed the offence between October 12 and 16, 2012 at the same area.

DAILY NEWS TANZANIA: