Ponda challenges Morogoro court charges

THE Secretary of the Council of Islamic Organization, Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda, has renewed his application before the High Court challenging charges filed against him at the Morogoro Resident Magistrate’s Court.

His advocate Juma Nassoro confirmed to the ‘Daily News’ in Dar es Salaam saying, “Yes, we have filed afresh our application and we have been told Judge Augustine Mwarija has been assigned to preside over the matter.”

Advocate Nassoro could not reveal the actual date when the hearing of the application in question would be held. “We have not been informed of the date of the hearing. We are waiting court summonses to that effect,” he said.

In the application, the Muslim Sheikh is seeking for revision of the lower court’s findings, notably the decision of upholding the legality of the count relating to disobedience of the judgment issued by the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam.

In the judgment, the Kisutu Court convicted Ponda and directed him to refrain from engaging in activities aimed at inciting the society to commit crimes.

Ponda is asking the court to either dismiss the charge in question or be recharged with the same offence at the Kisutu Court.

The Muslim Sheikh was arraigned before the Morogoro Court on August 19, last year, facing three counts of disobeying a lawful order and incitements to commit offences.

The prosecution alleged that Sheikh Ponda committed the offences on August 10, last year at Ndege Primary School ground in Morogoro Municipality.

Ponda allegedly gave seditious statements, inciting the society in contravention of court directives. According to the prosecution, Sheikh Ponda incited Muslim believers not to recognize Mosques Securities formed by the Muslim Council of Tanzania (Bakwata), whom he claimed were puppets of CCM and the government and if were to show up should beat them.

Such statement was allegedly against the directive of the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court, which convicted him on May 9, last year, of forcible entry into a plot and gave him a 12-month suspended sentence with a warning that he should refrain from inciting the society.

The prosecution further told the court that at the same grounds, Sheikh Ponda issued statements with seditious intent, saying the government deployed the army to Mtwara Region to contain chaos to citizens who were objecting to the construction of a gas pipe.

Ponda was also quoted as saying that citizens who are 90 per cent Muslims were raped, killed and intimidated, but the government had not done so during a conflict between residents of Loliondo, who are 90 per cent Christians, that had opposed an Arab being given a potion of hunting block.

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