19760520 TZHC Arusha

IN THE HIGH COURT OF TAIZANIA AT ARUSHA APPELLATE JURISDICTION . . . HIGH COURT CRILINAL APPEAL NO. 62 OF 1975 ORIGINAL CRININAL CASE NO. 163 OF 1974 OF THI DL3TIC.T OOUR.T OF. KOROGV1E DISTRIC'i AT KOROGJE BEFORE J. E. C I(ASAFCHE, ThcI., Residenb Nagistrete BidCiRI KAJTA . . . . . ... . .. . . , . , . . . APPElLANT (Original Accused) THE REPUBLIC LESPONDT (Ol-iginal osecutor) JUDGEJENT NYALALI, J. The appellant, was charged and convicted in the district court of Korogwe ditrict at Korogwe with the offence of Cattle theft c/s. 268 of. the Penal Code and was sentenced to 7 years iniprisömmëht....Ho is now appealing to this Court against conviction and 'sentence. Tmere is no ner±t in the aJjpoa1 againot conviction since there is evidence tht the appellant sold the cow to P31.3 who in turn sold it to P.V1.2, a butcher 9 who then slaughtered it. Both transactions of sale were witnessed by P.W.4. The skin of the slaughtered cow was very satisfactorily identified in court by P.W.l who was able to distingu.ish another skin which did not belong to his slaughtered cow. The evidence shows that the cow was stolen on.during the night of 20/21 February 1973 and. the appe11ant sold the co\v to P.W.3 during the day of 21 February 1976. In his defence the appellant gave a general denial of the prosecution case and asserted that the cow could have been sold to i.W.3 by a different person. P.W.3 however was positive about the identity of the appellant who used to supply him with cattle on previous occasions. .. i an satisfied that apellant was properly convicted. As to the sentence 9 the trial court decided to impose a severe sentence than the minimum prescribed by law, since he was of the view that appellant had previous convictions. The record however appears to show that appellant was disputing the previous conviction. The proper procedure in such a case, would have been to obtain a record of the previous conviction from the Bureau of Criminal Identification to show if thoappellant was the same persOn as the one allegedly convicted in the previous case. This was not done. It is therefore unsafe to hold the iow that the appellant had a previous conviction. The sentence will therefore have to be reduced. The.................