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Alex Bitekeye And Frank Aman
16 June 2011
Dar es Salaam. - Opposition politician Christopher Mtilika is demanding $150 million (about Sh225 billion) compensation from the government for alleged wrongful and malicious imprisonment.The Rev Mtikila, who was sentenced to a year's imprisonment in December 1999, has sued the government at the Arusha-based African Court on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR).
The case is one of several the Democratic Party chairman filed at the court on June 10.The Rev Mtikila said in a news conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday that he filed the cases after realising that his rights were violated during proceedings at the Kivukoni Magistrate's Court that culminated in his imprisonm
He said he consulted some ACPR lawyers, who concluded that the court might have violated some of his fundamental rights when it sentenced him.
On Dec 14, 1999, the court sentenced the Rev Mtikila to a year in prison for sedition. He was first charged in April 1997 with uttering seditious remarks against CCM and government officials regarding the death of the party's former secretary-general, the late Horace Kolimba.
The Rev Mtilika said CCM and the government had killed Mr Kolimba, and branded CCM leaders "devils".
The court concluded that the Rev Mtikila had indeed made seditious defamatory remarks against senior government officials and handed him a jail sentence, noting that he was a first offender.
But Mtikila said yesterday that his rights were trampled upon during the trial. "I was not given an opportunity to testify...the water given to the late Kolimba was neither tested nor brought before the court as an exhibit," the Rev Mtikila said.
He added that his right to appeal was also violated as his jail term ended while the petition was still pending in court. The Rev Mtikila has also filed another case at ACHPR, challenging two constitutional amendments, which prevent Tanzanian citizens from seeking election to political office as independent candidates.
The opposition politician filed a petition in 2005, and the High Court ruled in his favour. However, the government appealed at the High Court, which overturned the verdict.
The Rev Mtikila contends that his right to participate in the governance of his country, free of discrimination and with freedom of association as guaranteed in the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, have been infringed. "The public needs wise leaders irrespective of their ideologies.
People are being discriminated against just because they don't want to join any political party," he said.
16 June 2011
Dar es Salaam. - Opposition politician Christopher Mtilika is demanding $150 million (about Sh225 billion) compensation from the government for alleged wrongful and malicious imprisonment.The Rev Mtikila, who was sentenced to a year's imprisonment in December 1999, has sued the government at the Arusha-based African Court on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR).
The case is one of several the Democratic Party chairman filed at the court on June 10.The Rev Mtikila said in a news conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday that he filed the cases after realising that his rights were violated during proceedings at the Kivukoni Magistrate's Court that culminated in his imprisonm
He said he consulted some ACPR lawyers, who concluded that the court might have violated some of his fundamental rights when it sentenced him.
On Dec 14, 1999, the court sentenced the Rev Mtikila to a year in prison for sedition. He was first charged in April 1997 with uttering seditious remarks against CCM and government officials regarding the death of the party's former secretary-general, the late Horace Kolimba.
The Rev Mtilika said CCM and the government had killed Mr Kolimba, and branded CCM leaders "devils".
The court concluded that the Rev Mtikila had indeed made seditious defamatory remarks against senior government officials and handed him a jail sentence, noting that he was a first offender.
But Mtikila said yesterday that his rights were trampled upon during the trial. "I was not given an opportunity to testify...the water given to the late Kolimba was neither tested nor brought before the court as an exhibit," the Rev Mtikila said.
He added that his right to appeal was also violated as his jail term ended while the petition was still pending in court. The Rev Mtikila has also filed another case at ACHPR, challenging two constitutional amendments, which prevent Tanzanian citizens from seeking election to political office as independent candidates.
The opposition politician filed a petition in 2005, and the High Court ruled in his favour. However, the government appealed at the High Court, which overturned the verdict.
The Rev Mtikila contends that his right to participate in the governance of his country, free of discrimination and with freedom of association as guaranteed in the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, have been infringed. "The public needs wise leaders irrespective of their ideologies.
People are being discriminated against just because they don't want to join any political party," he said.
