Tanzania court jails opposition leader for incitement, lifts treason charge

Dismissal of treason charge means Tundu Lissu avoids threat of death penalty in a trial that has drawn international condemnation. But the three-judge panel in Dar-es-Salaam dismissed a charge of treason that carried the threat of a death sentence. The ruling was handed down on Friday, in a trial closely watched internationally.

“We are satisfied that through his statements, the accused intended to disrupt elections and instigate violence,” one judge told a courtroom packed with Lissu’s supporters. Lissu, who heads the main opposition party, Chadema, responded that the trial was “political persecution”, accusing the judges of following orders from the government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan. “I was not charged with incitement but you judges are convicting me with it just to impress the person who gives you the titles.

I believe these were directives,” he said. Tito Magoti, a Tanzanian human rights lawyer based in Oxford, UK, said the fact that the treason charge – which is the capital crime in Tanzania’s penal code – was dismissed for Lissu is “a major blow” for the state.