198900427 TZHC Dodoma

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF TANZANIA AT DODOMA (CORAM: Mustaf a, Ag..C.J., Mwakasendo, J6,;and Makame 9 J,A.)' - .... . .CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 14 OF 1980 B E T W E E N GODFREY MSENGI 0 . '0 . APPELLANT A N D, THEREPUBLIC, 0000000 ô 0400000000 RESPONDENT (Appeal from the conviction of.the High Court of Tanzania at Singida) (Lugakingira, J.) dated the 10th day of March, 1980, in CRIMINAL SESSIONS CASE J'Jb0. 48 -OF "1-978 JUDGMENT OF THE COURT MUSTAFk, Ag. C....I..: The villagers of Konkilange village decided to chase out some reputed cattle thieves. The deceased was supposed to' be. one of them. On the 22nd December, 19.7.7, the villagers collected the deceased and two or three of the other reputed c'attle thieves and es,corted them out of the village0 In the course of the journey the deceased panicked and ran off. A number of villagers chased him, caught up - with and beat him mercilessly with sticks. He was battered to death, his head was a mass of brokeh bone and flesh and blood:, and his stomach split open. He died of haemorrhage and shock. Twelve villagers were charged with the offence of murder. . The Republic entered nolles for five, and the trial judg.e at the trial held that three of the accused had no case to answer, That left four accused, being' Accused 2, AccUsed 3, Accused 4 and Accused 5 as they were so described at the trial couzt.. Accused 2 was acqu±tted after the trial, ACCUSed; 3 and Accused 4 were convicted of assault and discharged since, they had been in custody' for over' one year. AccuSed 5, is the appellant in this' appeal.' He was convicted' of murder and sentenced to death. - ..-. .12 ) -2- The only evidence against him is his extra-judicial statement to a Justice of the Peace, which he has not challenged at the trial. He remained silent and made no defence after the prosecution case ended. The relevant parts of his statement read:., "We eight people were selected to chase away the deceased because he was a cattle thief The deceased ,. took to his heels. - We decided to pursue him. We were all angry and we all beat him. I hit the deceased on the head with a stick once. Having been beaten the deceased died. We then returned homa. we reported that we had killed the deceased." As we said earlier, the body of the deceased was a mass of battered flesh and bone. The trial judge held that the extra-judicial statement amounted to a confession of murder. We have examined the circumstances and we agree with the trial judge on this matter. We are satisfied that the appellant was rightly convicted of murder and we find no merit in the appeal which is dismissed. DATED at DODOMA this 27th day of May, 1980 A. MUSTAFA ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE Y. M. M. MWAKASENDO JUSTICE OF APPEAL •. L. M. MAKAME JUSTICE OF APPEAL I certify that this is a true copy of the original. ( L. A. A. KYANDO ) DEPUTY REGISTRAR