Want to send donations to Albinos in Tanzania? Here's how
Monday, November 23, 2009
Get to know How you can send donations to Albinos in Tanzania
Check out the following link for information on how and where to send donations to Albinos in Tanzania:
Donor and delegation kept waiting at school
Canadian philanthropist Peter Ash, who is an albino, smears sunscreen lotion on the hands of a pupil at Mitindo Primary School in Misungwi District, Mwanza Region, on Saturday. Pastor Ash was kept waiting outside the school for over two hours before he was finally let inCanadian donor was at the weekend temporarily barred from visiting a primary school in Misungwi District in Mwanza Region.
Mr Peter Ash and his delegation and several local and foreign journalists were stopped at the gate of Mitindo Primary School, which has over 100 pupils with albinism.
The visitors were only allowed in after speaking on the phone with Mwanza Regional Commissioner Abbas Kandoro, over two hours after arriving at the school...Read the Rest Here
Missing link in Albino killings
Story courtesy of The Guardian Newspaper Tanzania
A Canadian-based human rights group has questioned Tanzania's commitment to stop albino killings for failing to name the forces behind the macabre acts.
Peter Ash, President and founder of a Canadian-based NGO observed here on Friday that the only missing link in the pyramid of albino killers is the rich man who looks for albino human parts.
“So far, it is traditional healers and killers that have been named and brought to justice. We want the consumers, the rich that can afford million of shillings to be named” said Ash.
Ash was addressing an International Press Conference at Nyawilimwa village after laying a wreath on the grave of a ten-year child Gasper Elkana, who was brutally murdered and his leg chopped off at Geita District, Mwanza Region by unidentified assailants.
Gasper, who had gone out for a short-call escorted by his father at around 20 hours on the night of October 23, 2009, was slashed by a machete and when his guarding father made an attempt to help him, he too was hit on the head and wounded seriously.
“I read about Gasper’s death with profound shock and imagined the calamity as having struck my family, because this family and mine have so many things in common. The age of Elkana Gasper’s father and I tally and so do the late and my son’s, ” he said.
At least 54 Tanzanian albinos have been murdered since 2007, with most of the killings taking place in the remote northwest regions of Shinyanga and Mwanza, where superstition runs deep.
The High Court, sitting in Shinyanga municipality to preside over cases involving albino killings, delivered its first judgement in September where it convicted and sentenced to death three accused persons.
Reading the ruling, which lasted about an hour, High Court Judge Gabriel Rwakibalila said the court was satisfied that the evidence tendered by the prosecution side proved beyond reasonable doubt that three of the convicts were involved in the killings of the ablbino.
The same court early this month, delivered its second judgment by convicting and sentencing to death by hanging four accused persons.
The immediate reaction to the ruling by some sections was to dismiss it as a non-starter. However, it restored the trust of many people in the country’s judicial system. Meanwhile, chairman of Tanzania Albino Society (TAS) Mwanza Region Alfred Kapole wants the government to speed up the pending albino cases.
He expressed disappointment that the cases have stalled for the second time for lack of funds.
Albinos lack pigment in their eyes, skin or hair, making their life difficult in Africa where there is plenty of sunshine and they are more susceptible to skin cancer and sunburn.
"...the only missing link in the pyramid of albino killers is the rich man who looks for albino human parts"
A Canadian-based human rights group has questioned Tanzania's commitment to stop albino killings for failing to name the forces behind the macabre acts.
Peter Ash, President and founder of a Canadian-based NGO observed here on Friday that the only missing link in the pyramid of albino killers is the rich man who looks for albino human parts.
“So far, it is traditional healers and killers that have been named and brought to justice. We want the consumers, the rich that can afford million of shillings to be named” said Ash.
Ash was addressing an International Press Conference at Nyawilimwa village after laying a wreath on the grave of a ten-year child Gasper Elkana, who was brutally murdered and his leg chopped off at Geita District, Mwanza Region by unidentified assailants.
Gasper, who had gone out for a short-call escorted by his father at around 20 hours on the night of October 23, 2009, was slashed by a machete and when his guarding father made an attempt to help him, he too was hit on the head and wounded seriously.
“I read about Gasper’s death with profound shock and imagined the calamity as having struck my family, because this family and mine have so many things in common. The age of Elkana Gasper’s father and I tally and so do the late and my son’s, ” he said.
At least 54 Tanzanian albinos have been murdered since 2007, with most of the killings taking place in the remote northwest regions of Shinyanga and Mwanza, where superstition runs deep.
The High Court, sitting in Shinyanga municipality to preside over cases involving albino killings, delivered its first judgement in September where it convicted and sentenced to death three accused persons.
Reading the ruling, which lasted about an hour, High Court Judge Gabriel Rwakibalila said the court was satisfied that the evidence tendered by the prosecution side proved beyond reasonable doubt that three of the convicts were involved in the killings of the ablbino.
The same court early this month, delivered its second judgment by convicting and sentencing to death by hanging four accused persons.
The immediate reaction to the ruling by some sections was to dismiss it as a non-starter. However, it restored the trust of many people in the country’s judicial system. Meanwhile, chairman of Tanzania Albino Society (TAS) Mwanza Region Alfred Kapole wants the government to speed up the pending albino cases.
He expressed disappointment that the cases have stalled for the second time for lack of funds.
Albinos lack pigment in their eyes, skin or hair, making their life difficult in Africa where there is plenty of sunshine and they are more susceptible to skin cancer and sunburn.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Impassioned Plea: Please reduce the Red Tape!
I watched on TV the almost insurmountable red tape that Peter Ash had to contend with the other day when he went to deliver donations to a school that has albino children in Misungwi district in Mwanza.
His entourage was locked out and it seems there were express orders from high up not to allow them to get in and deliver the donations.
When Mwanza Regional Commissioner, Abbas Kandoro, heard what had happened, he called the officials on the ground at the school and asked them to allow the donations to be delivered.
We at this blog ask: Must this red tape persist?
The officials on the ground know that the albinos at the school, and in other parts of the country, are in dire need of some things that would make life a bit bearable for them. Why, then, should there be opposition when someone finds it in his heart to donate such things to them?
Furthermore, Peter Ash, being an albino, knows what his brothers and sisters, the albinos, need. Thus, his gesture of donating to them should be received with open arms.
Our advice: Guys, please reduce the red tape!.
His entourage was locked out and it seems there were express orders from high up not to allow them to get in and deliver the donations.
When Mwanza Regional Commissioner, Abbas Kandoro, heard what had happened, he called the officials on the ground at the school and asked them to allow the donations to be delivered.
We at this blog ask: Must this red tape persist?
The officials on the ground know that the albinos at the school, and in other parts of the country, are in dire need of some things that would make life a bit bearable for them. Why, then, should there be opposition when someone finds it in his heart to donate such things to them?
Furthermore, Peter Ash, being an albino, knows what his brothers and sisters, the albinos, need. Thus, his gesture of donating to them should be received with open arms.
Our advice: Guys, please reduce the red tape!.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Albino killings and the death sentence: All murder cases are not equal, are they?
Story courtesy of The Guardian newspaper Tanzania (7/11/2009)
By Ani Jozen
Rapid convictions and sentencing of suspects of albino killings in Shinyanga region have put activists for the abolishment of the death penalty on a tight spot, as society generally was gratified that their hanging would send a solid message to other hunters of albinos’ organs.
The death penalty abolition lobby, at pains to change societal attitudes which are overly uninterested in making criminals better people and prefer to get them out of the way, and where relevant by death, are rushing in. This is vital.
The question is vital because if society will be convinced of the futility of hanging those convicted of involvement in killings of skin-disabled people, the most grotesque spate of criminality the country has seen for a while yet, they will have succeeded in discrediting the death penalty itself.
If it is possible to spare albino killings convicts of their carrying out of their sentences, then it is potentially likely that it will be possible to seek formal halting of application of such sentencing. So far it’s a private decision.
No such moratorium (freezing) has been declared on application of death penalties, but the president just hasn’t felt it proper to sign any of the pending sentences.
Activists insist that so long as no such sentences has been applied in the past 16 years, then none will be applied, in which case it is proper to affirm the irrelevance of the sentences in the pursuit either of justice or of alleviating criminality by correcting offenders. Yet it is clear that when issues of death sentence arise, correction is not an option.
The principal argument about the application of the death sentence is that error can’t be ruled out 100 per cent in any conviction, and that unconsidered evidence could arise in future to invalidate the view that the convict was sufficiently responsible for that event.
If the sentence would have been carried out already, the damage is irreparable, so it is better that presumably correctly sentenced people should live than wrongly sentenced people put to death, even if that is rare. No wrongful death is too rare to count.
It isn’t surprising that the sentencing of convicts of albino killings brings out activists against the death penalty, as if they don’t combat this particular spate of convictions – which have a high likelihood of being carried out – they lose the battle altogether.
They don’t intend to create a ‘Kafkaesque’ situation or say one that is close to Animal Farm, the harrowing contradiction of ‘no animal shall sleep on a bed – with sheets.’ They would have to adapt their slogan to ‘abolish the penalty, except for albino killers.’
Yet this is precisely what is refreshing about the debate, as to whether it is of any use at the moment to tell society that even those who hack innocent people for selling of their body parts should be retained in this or that prison.
And especially if the issue is that they will change and become better people, it is hard to see how that becomes convincing to the breadth of society – that they will not be wishing to earn a million shillings for several albino body parts. There is acute need for deterrence as the moment.
The judiciary and the government at a wider level are still smarting from a tormenting somersault on the traders and taxi driver killings by police officers. Letting the albino murderers would send a signal to others that all they risk is eating unbalanced diet in jail, and they retain a chance of being loose again, since ‘where there is life there is hope.’ It would mean that the government passes up a good opportunity for showing to the world it intends to ameliorate its shattered image, from albino killings.
Activists will be confronted with this consideration, since it is far more positive for the government to rectify the country’s image about injustice to albinos than worrying about justice or presumed right to life of their convicted killers.
At times those convicted faced hostile evidence from their own wives as to how they went about seeking out or grabbing the children they hacked to death, a line of evidence no future ‘fact’ can unsettle as to guilt on that account. There are few ‘rare’ facts that are likely here.
One could of course be accused of being simplistic as to whether any case in law is completely closed such that no fact could be unearthed in future to unsettle it.
The response however may not be that far off, as this is also covered by democracy, that elected officials, when acting fairly and receiving clear and distinctive legal advice on a particular case, can examine each case on its own merit. For instance if a conviction includes corroborating evidence by those who are close to the convict, it is deemed safe.
When however one has been convicted entirely on the basis of evidence adduced in court by strangers, and close ones like wife or siblings remained deeply skeptical of that evidence, such person may be placed in life imprisonment but no execution take place.
Just as there can’t be a blanket fear of new and unsettling evidence, so also is it necessary not to rule out such evidence simply because the issue is albino killings. If a proper rule of thumb is placed on that specific detail no miscarriage of law is likely.
That also means it is hard to defend the ‘no death penalty’ maxim in a blanket manner, unless it was presumed that no crime merits suffering death as punishment.
This too is covered in law and would tend to place albino killings at a different level from murder generally, as the latter is quite often tied to conflict, and at times in situations where the assailant was also in danger, and yet the law qualifies such conviction for the death penalty.
That could of course be commuted to life imprisonment, but when a man has cynically, even in the testimony of his wife, gone about harvesting body parts with a panga, the rest of us can be forgiven for not treating him on a par with human beings. He wouldn’t deserve it.
By Ani Jozen
Rapid convictions and sentencing of suspects of albino killings in Shinyanga region have put activists for the abolishment of the death penalty on a tight spot, as society generally was gratified that their hanging would send a solid message to other hunters of albinos’ organs.
The death penalty abolition lobby, at pains to change societal attitudes which are overly uninterested in making criminals better people and prefer to get them out of the way, and where relevant by death, are rushing in. This is vital.
The question is vital because if society will be convinced of the futility of hanging those convicted of involvement in killings of skin-disabled people, the most grotesque spate of criminality the country has seen for a while yet, they will have succeeded in discrediting the death penalty itself.
If it is possible to spare albino killings convicts of their carrying out of their sentences, then it is potentially likely that it will be possible to seek formal halting of application of such sentencing. So far it’s a private decision.
No such moratorium (freezing) has been declared on application of death penalties, but the president just hasn’t felt it proper to sign any of the pending sentences.
Activists insist that so long as no such sentences has been applied in the past 16 years, then none will be applied, in which case it is proper to affirm the irrelevance of the sentences in the pursuit either of justice or of alleviating criminality by correcting offenders. Yet it is clear that when issues of death sentence arise, correction is not an option.
The principal argument about the application of the death sentence is that error can’t be ruled out 100 per cent in any conviction, and that unconsidered evidence could arise in future to invalidate the view that the convict was sufficiently responsible for that event.
If the sentence would have been carried out already, the damage is irreparable, so it is better that presumably correctly sentenced people should live than wrongly sentenced people put to death, even if that is rare. No wrongful death is too rare to count.
It isn’t surprising that the sentencing of convicts of albino killings brings out activists against the death penalty, as if they don’t combat this particular spate of convictions – which have a high likelihood of being carried out – they lose the battle altogether.
They don’t intend to create a ‘Kafkaesque’ situation or say one that is close to Animal Farm, the harrowing contradiction of ‘no animal shall sleep on a bed – with sheets.’ They would have to adapt their slogan to ‘abolish the penalty, except for albino killers.’
Yet this is precisely what is refreshing about the debate, as to whether it is of any use at the moment to tell society that even those who hack innocent people for selling of their body parts should be retained in this or that prison.
And especially if the issue is that they will change and become better people, it is hard to see how that becomes convincing to the breadth of society – that they will not be wishing to earn a million shillings for several albino body parts. There is acute need for deterrence as the moment.
The judiciary and the government at a wider level are still smarting from a tormenting somersault on the traders and taxi driver killings by police officers. Letting the albino murderers would send a signal to others that all they risk is eating unbalanced diet in jail, and they retain a chance of being loose again, since ‘where there is life there is hope.’ It would mean that the government passes up a good opportunity for showing to the world it intends to ameliorate its shattered image, from albino killings.
Activists will be confronted with this consideration, since it is far more positive for the government to rectify the country’s image about injustice to albinos than worrying about justice or presumed right to life of their convicted killers.
At times those convicted faced hostile evidence from their own wives as to how they went about seeking out or grabbing the children they hacked to death, a line of evidence no future ‘fact’ can unsettle as to guilt on that account. There are few ‘rare’ facts that are likely here.
One could of course be accused of being simplistic as to whether any case in law is completely closed such that no fact could be unearthed in future to unsettle it.
The response however may not be that far off, as this is also covered by democracy, that elected officials, when acting fairly and receiving clear and distinctive legal advice on a particular case, can examine each case on its own merit. For instance if a conviction includes corroborating evidence by those who are close to the convict, it is deemed safe.
When however one has been convicted entirely on the basis of evidence adduced in court by strangers, and close ones like wife or siblings remained deeply skeptical of that evidence, such person may be placed in life imprisonment but no execution take place.
Just as there can’t be a blanket fear of new and unsettling evidence, so also is it necessary not to rule out such evidence simply because the issue is albino killings. If a proper rule of thumb is placed on that specific detail no miscarriage of law is likely.
That also means it is hard to defend the ‘no death penalty’ maxim in a blanket manner, unless it was presumed that no crime merits suffering death as punishment.
This too is covered in law and would tend to place albino killings at a different level from murder generally, as the latter is quite often tied to conflict, and at times in situations where the assailant was also in danger, and yet the law qualifies such conviction for the death penalty.
That could of course be commuted to life imprisonment, but when a man has cynically, even in the testimony of his wife, gone about harvesting body parts with a panga, the rest of us can be forgiven for not treating him on a par with human beings. He wouldn’t deserve it.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Albino killings: Govt to `smoke out` all suspects
Snapshots
Several other legislators also contributed to debate on the matter, saying the killings had tarnished Tanzania’s image to the extent that the country was now considered insensitive to human rights or incapable of guaranteeing the safety of some of its people.
Others recommended that court proceedings be accelerated and convicts be punished without delay since those who had their loved ones so brutally killed had begun questioning the government’s capacity to deal with serious crime.
.................... ........................
Story courtesy of The Guardian newspaper Tanzania
The government has vowed to “smoke out of their hideouts” all people suspected of murdering, maiming, intimidating or harassing albinos for whatever reason.
It has also announced that it will do all that is in power to “sever once and for all the alliance between these evil-minded people and the witchdoctors misleading them into committing the crimes”.
The promise comes from Home Affairs deputy minister Khamis Kagasheki, who told the National Assembly here yesterday that nine of the 90 albino killer suspects currently in custody are traditional healers.
Responding to a question by Special Seat legislator Maria Hewa, who demanded clarification from the government on the number of people arrested so far in connection with albino killings, Kagasheki said police had taken “aggressive measures” and held a number of suspects.
“Between June 2007 and March 2009, a total of 90 suspects had already been put in custody and brought to justice,” he said.
He added: “Investigations are continuing on 17 cases in the Lake Victoria zone, nine cases are pending in the High Court, two have already been decided and seven accused have been convicted and sentenced to death in Shinyanga Region. Four accused were found guilty as recently as Monday this week and sentenced to death.”
In a supplementary question, the legislator called on the government to make sure that all suspected albino killers were taken “to where they belong (custody) alongside their acquaintances pretending to be traditional healers”.
Several other legislators also contributed to debate on the matter, saying the killings had tarnished Tanzania’s image to the extent that the country was now considered insensitive to human rights or incapable of guaranteeing the safety of some of its people.
Others recommended that court proceedings be accelerated and convicts be punished without delay since those who had their loved ones so brutally killed had begun questioning the government’s capacity to deal with serious crime.
Can the death sentence deter Albino killings?
“Hangings cannot put albino killings to an end. The death penalty is not reliable enough as a solution. We need to think of better and more definitive ways out”
“Even after the first group of people suspected of murdering albinos was sentenced to death by hanging, there was no improvement in the situation. There was no noticeable change in people’s behaviour. Instead, more and more albinos were murdered in Geita and several other parts of the Lake Victoria zone”
`Battle` Over Death Penalty Once More
Story courtesy of The Guardian newspaper Tanzania
Physical protection is a much better way of ensuring the safety of albinos than sentencing to death people behind their killings, human rights activists have insisted.
Harold Sungusia, public engagement coordinator with the Dar es Salaam-based Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), said in an interview with this paper on Tuesday that there was no country where capital punishment had served as an effective enough deterrent to homicide.
He was speaking in the recent sentencing to death by the High Court of several people found guilty of killing albinos.
“Even after the first group of people suspected of murdering albinos was sentenced to death by hanging, there was no improvement in the situation. There was no noticeable change in people’s behaviour. Instead, more and more albinos were murdered in Geita and several other parts of the Lake Victoria zone,” he said.
He added: “That was enough proof that the death penalty is not a lasting solution and that it does not scare anyone into treating albinos as normal humans.”
Sungusia, a lawyer, said capital punishment fell short on three counts as a deterrent – “changing offenders into good law-abiding people, ensuring that one does not relapse into crime, and ensuring that convicts rejoin their communities rehabilitated on completion of their punishment.
He noted that some people were sentenced to death for crimes they had not committed and that it was “simply not practicable” for people hanged after being convicted to enjoy their rights should evidence absolving them be made available after they are hanged.
“Hangings cannot put albino killings to an end. The death penalty is not reliable enough as a solution. We need to think of better and more definitive ways out,” he added.
But Sungusia stated that Tanzanian laws gave the courts the power to sentence albino killers and all other murderers to death.
“Even if the President decides to sign warrants effectively sanctioning the hanging of murder convicts, he would be perfectly right because that is provided for by our laws,” he pointed out.
He elaborated: “The problem lies in the laws we have. Some are so hopelessly outdated and therefore so bad that they call for urgent amendment or scrapping,” he said, adding that there was also “an urgent need to shift from criminology to victimology in order to restore justice in the society”.
LHRC director Francis Kiwanga similarly noted that the nation has failed to arrest the killings of albinos and that the death penalty has not been implemented in Tanzania in the last 16 or so years.
“The failure to actually hang murder convicts to death for this long means that there is no need to continue embracing the death sentence. Rather, we should concentrate on ways of controlling the killings of albinos,” he added.
But law professor Abdallah Safari trashed suggestions that the death penalty be abolished, saying those recommending as much were uncritical advocates of western philosophies.
“There is no way I can buy those suggestions. Rising numbers of countries I know are very seriously contemplating reinstating capital punishment. How strange it is that there are Tanzanians bent on doing the opposite!” he said.
Prof Safari said abolishing capital punishment would be going against religious and most other social norms “because all the holy books support the death penalty”.
However, he explained that sentence ought to be executed “only when there was no alternative way of getting a solution to the problem on the strength of which the sentence was passed”.
He insisted that in extreme cases like the killings of innocent albinos, the death penalty was easily the most logical way of dealing with the problem.
Another legal expert, Dr Edmund Sengondo Mvungi, was of the view that the question of whether to retain the death penalty was “a long-standing issue as far as the Holy Books and schools of law are concerned”.
He too said he did not view capital punishment as an effective enough deterrent in cases involving murder, adding: “Albino killings have their roots in traditional beliefs, and this makes the crime extremely difficult to kick out of society. It is like planning to end trading in narcotics,” he said.
He elaborated: “I must state categorically that it is just not right to kill an albino or anyone else because doing so deprives the victims of their basic right to life. But it would be equally not right to sentence murder convicts to death because that too would mean denying them their basic right to life.”
Dr Mvungi stressed that it would be neither right nor proper to use “the principle of negation in seeking solutions to problems”, and called on society “to appreciate the fact that albinos need and deserve as much love, protection and feeling of belonging from their respective communities as everyone else”.
“These people are a minority, they are desperate and they lack protection. Therefore they badly need social integration and recognition,” he said.
The High Court of Tanzania, sitting in Shinyanga Region specifically to preside over cases involving albino killings, delivered its second judgment on Monday by convicting four accused persons and sentencing them to death by hanging.
Judge Gadi Mjemas sentenced Mboje Mawe, Chenyenye Kishiwa, Sayi Gamaya and Sayi Mafizi, all residents of Nkindwabiye village in Bariadi District, Shinyanga Region.
They were charged with having conspired and killed Lyaku Wille (50) of Nkindwabiye village between November and December last year.
In its first ruling in September this year, the court similarly convicted and sentenced three accused persons. Judge Gabriel Rwakibalila delivered the judgment, saying the court was satisfied that the evidence presented by the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt the involvement of the three convicts in the killings.
He said the trio conspired and killed schoolboy Matatizo Dunia (13), an albino, on December 1 last year at Bunyihuna village in Shinyanga Region’s Bukombe District.
Those found guilty and are now on death row are Masumbuko Madata (32) of Itunga Village, Emmanuel Masangwa (28) of Bunyihuna Village and Charles Kalamuji alias Charles Masangwa (42) of Nanda Village, all in Bukombe District. The court ruled that they committed the crime as per Section 16 of Criminal Act No. 196, as amended in 2002.
The pronouncement of the first death sentence against albino killers (in Shinyanga in September last year) was greeted with jubilation among people who thronged the High Court set up in the area specifically for the purpose.
However, most lawyers interviewed said implementation of the death sentence was not as easy as people thought because it would have to be preceded by a fairly long process lasting between three to four years.
It was explained that before those on death row were hanged to death, a panel of judges would have to deliberate on the ruling. They would then submit a report to a special jury that would, in turn, advise the President on whether to assent to the court’s ruling that the convicts be hanged to death.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Four more albino killers sentenced to death
Story courtesy of The Guardian newspaper Tanzania
The High Court of Tanzania sitting in Shinyanga region specifically to preside over cases of albino killings, delivered its second judgment yesterday by convicting and sentencing to death by hanging four accused persons.
Delivering the judgment which lasted almost four hours, High Court judge Gadi Mjemas sentenced Mboje Mawe, Chenyenye Kishiwa, Sayi Gamaya and Sayi Mafizi, all residents of Nkindwabiye village in Bariadi district, Shinyanga region to be hanged to death.
He said the four conspired and killed Lyaku Wille (50) of Nkindwabiye village between November and December last year.
Judge Mjemas said he was convinced beyond reasonable doubt based on evidence adduced from DNA results conducted by a government chemist, Gloria Machube that matched blood stains found on the weapons which were in the accused possession, that none other than the accused committed the offence.
The judge said despite an inconsequential mix-up of some facts in submissions by the prosecution side, “the truth remained intact and hence the fairness of the judgment delivered by this court against the accused”.
Defence lawyer John Mwigula said he was not satisfied with the ruling against his clients and would appeal.
The court heard from prosecution witnesses that the accused immersed into water the late Lyaku before cutting his head and legs and disappearing with them, and that the body was found buried near Mboje Mawe’s house.
In its first ruling in September this year, the High Court sitting in Shinyanga sentenced to death three accused persons, making seven in total.
Delivering the judgment, which lasted about an hour, High Court Judge Gabriel Rwakibalila said the court was satisfied that the evidence presented by the prosecution side proved beyond reasonable doubt the involvement of the three convicts in the killings.
He said the trio conspired and killed schoolboy Matatizo Dunia (13), an albino, on December 1, last year at Bunyihuna village in Shinyanga Region’s Bukombe District.
Those found guilty and now on death row are Masumbuko Madata (32) of Itunga Village, Emmanuel Masangwa (28) of Bunyihuna Village and Charles Kalamuji alias Charles Masangwa (42) of Nanda Village, all in Bukombe District. The court ruled that they committed the crime as per Section 16 of Criminal Act No. 196, as amended in 2002.
4 more to hung for Albino murder
THE High Court in Shinyanga Region yesterday sentenced to death by hanging four people, who were charged with killing a 10-year-old albino, Lyaku Willy, at Kidamlida River at Nkwindwabuye Village in Bariadd District last year.
This brings to seven the number of people so far sentenced to death after they were convicted of murder of albinos...Read the Rest Here
This brings to seven the number of people so far sentenced to death after they were convicted of murder of albinos...Read the Rest Here
90 people arrested in connection to Albino killings
A total of 90 people have been arrested and taken to court in connection to the killing of Albino people in the country in the period between June 2007 and March 2009...Read the Rest Here
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Albinos in Exile under new Threat
"I have heard many times people say ‘there goes a million or real money’ whenever I pass by," she said.
They fled Tanzania to escape death at the height of killings of albinos by witchdoctors for their body parts.
Those who crossed to Kenya sought refuge in some coastal towns but it seems their hunters have followed them...Read the Rest Here
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