Tanzania: sentenced to four years, Tundu Lissu to appeal
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Mwananchi
Sentenced on Friday to four years in prison for incitement to revolt, Chadema president Tundu Lissu will appeal and seek bail, the offence being in his party's view bailable. Party lawyer Nshala Rugemeleza announced this in Dar es Salaam, according to Mwananchi.
The secretary-general of Chadema, Tanzania's main opposition party, Nshala Rugemeleza, announced on Friday that Tundu Lissu, the party's president, intends to appeal the four-year prison sentence handed down to him the same day. He was speaking to the press at Chadema headquarters in Mikocheni, in Dar es Salaam, shortly after leaving the court.
The High Court of Tanzania, at its Dar es Salaam registry, sentenced Tundu Lissu to four years in prison after convicting him of incitement to rebellion. Chadema is in parallel preparing a bail application, saying the offence can be covered by such a measure. "We will talk with Lissu, but he has already shown today his willingness to appeal," Nshala Rugemeleza said, adding that Lissu criticises the court for not taking into account the 577 days spent in detention for treason, whereas the court retained incitement and not treason.
The secretary-general considers the sentence contestable given the time already served. "Incitement carries a maximum sentence of five years. Yet the person has already spent one year and seven months in detention, and now he is given four years. Four years plus the past year makes five years," he argued. He said the decision does not take into account Tundu Lissu's pre-trial detention since his arrest and indictment for treason.
The announcement comes the same day Tundu Lissu was sentenced to four years in prison in Tanzania, after a verdict awaited since the 6 November hearing. His family, for its part, contested the nature of the trial.
