04 April 2024 :

A court in Babati on March 5, 2024 sentenced six members of a community patrol, known as ‘Sungusungu’, to death for the brutal murder of a man they accused of cattle theft.
Babati is a town in Manyara Region of Tanzania.
The verdict was delivered by Judge Gladys Barthy at the High Court Registry.
The case relied heavily on the written confessions of all six defendants, which detailed their involvement in the killing.
The condemned individuals are Samwel Mgomelwa, identified as the commander of the Sungusungu group, Ramadhan Idd, Manda Ulinje, Amini Masilimu, Elia Lendama, and Anderson Chuyo.
The incident occurred on September 2, 2020, in the Kazingumu area of Laalaa Village, Kiteto District. The victim, Njokuti Moringe, also known as Mbaazi, was killed and buried by the accused.
The prosecution presented evidence from 11 witnesses and eight exhibits, including the defendants' confessions and the victim's mobile phone.

12 February 2024 :

The High Court of Kigoma on February 2, 2024 sentenced Kigoma Ujiji municipal resident Peter Mwandelema to be hanged to death after being found guilty of intentionally killing seven people of the same family in 2022.
The 34-year-old man from Mlole village was convicted of cold-blooded murdering the victims; six of them died on the material evening, while the other one passed away three days later while being transported to Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) for further treatment.
Justice Augustine Rwizile delivered the judgment after the court convicted the victim of murder.
The judge ruled that the prosecution proved the charge beyond reasonable doubt as required in criminal cases.
Regarding the prosecution’s evidence, he accepted the testimony of witnesses in line with Section 26 of the Criminal Procedure Act after examining the series of exhibits, including the tested blood samples (to extract DNA) discovered in the defendant’s clothes as well as a machete that was used in the murder.
Judge Rwizile further remarked that the defendant’s confession to committing the crime and the accuracy of the details provided by the prosecution satisfied the court.
Additionally, he claimed the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the phone the accused was found with after being arrested belonged to one of the deceased.
“These are direct evidence that the defendant was involved in the murder, and the Court finds him guilty and sentences him to death by hanging,” the Justice concluded.
The prosecution claimed that on July 3, 2022, in Kigoma Ujiji municipality, the accused person murdered seven people and was charged with murder, contrary to sections 196 and 197 of the Penal Code, CAP 16 R.E. 2019.
It is alleged that on the aforementioned date and place, the convict killed Tilifera Toyi (70), January Mussa (34), Sara Dunia (28), Joel Mussa (40), Christina Razalo (9), James Joel (7), and James January (3), who passed away three days later while being transported to MNH for further treatments.
The court also heard that, on a material day, the convict left a 6-month-old infant alive. The convict is said to have committed the crime out of sexual envy after learning that one of the family members was having an extramarital affair with his wife.
Therefore, on the incident day, the convict planned to kill his target man.
However, as the victims woke up and began screaming, he thought he should kill all members of the family to destroy the evidence.

10 June 2024 :

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has reiterated its longstanding order to Tanzania to revoke the death penalty in line with the continental charter on the right to life, The East African reported on June 6, 2024.
Delivering judgment on two separate cases, the court sitting in Arusha emphasised again that mandatory capital punishment was a violation of the African Charter and gave the country six months to remove it from its legal statutes.
Nzigiyimana Zabron, a Burundi national, and Tanzanian Dominick Damian are convicted murderers who have been languishing on death row at Mwanza's Butimba Central Prison for the last 12 years awaiting execution.
While the continental court has issued several similar orders for Tanzania to scrap the death penalty in recent years, the punishment has remained enshrined in the country's Penal Code despite growing opposition against it as a colonial era legacy.
This puts it among several African countries that continue to retain it despite a 1999 resolution by the African Commission for Human and People's Rights calling on African Union member states to observe a moratorium on capital punishment.
Only eight countries have abolished it in law and practice in the past 10 years, since 2014. Others are eyeing formal abolition while continuing to mete out the sentence for major offences.
Many, including Tanzania and Kenya, have not carried out any executions for years. Tanzania's last execution was in 1995 and Kenya, which also still sentences people to death, in 1987.
In a July 2023 report, a Tanzanian government commission overseeing judicial reforms proposed that death sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment as a more "humane" option.
The commission, which was chaired by the former chief justice Mohamed Chande Othman, said public opinion in the country was sharply divided on the merits and demerits of capital punishment as the best way to deal with serious crimes.
Two offences carry the death penalty in Tanzania -- murder and treason.
The report recommended that the Penal Code be amended to allow alternative punishments for murder in line with the circumstances behind each case and the sentence be converted to life imprisonment in cases where execution is delayed for at least three years.
Official statistics show that by May 2023, there were 691 prisoners in Tanzanian prisons awaiting execution of their death sentences meted out by domestic courts.
In the cases of Zabron and Damian, the African court rejected their appeals for their convictions to be quashed outright, saying their guilt had been established beyond reasonable doubt in the respective trial proceedings with no evidence of "miscarriage of justice."
But it ruled that their sentences to die by hanging should be revoked immediately and resentencing hearings be held within a year "through a procedure that does not allow the mandatory imposition of the death sentence and upholds the discretion of the judicial officer (judge)."
It said the imposition of the mandatory death sentence under Section 197 of Tanzania's Penal Code "constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of the right to life" and breached Article 4 of the African Charter by depriving the judicial officer of the "discretion to hand out any other penalty once the offence of murder is established."
The court also deplored hanging as a method of implementing the death penalty, stating that it was "a form of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment which is in violation of Article 5 of the Charter."
It said the violations against the right to life established by both applicants "extended beyond their cases" and required the respondent State to publish the two judgments on the websites of its judiciary and legal affairs ministry within three months and then continuously for one full year.