SPECIAL REPORT : How DPP office, police and magistrates aided drug dealers

Dar es Salaam. Many notorious drug dealers who were supposed to be in jail today are enjoying full freedom which could as well be through courtesy of a well-functioning syndicate that has infiltrated state lawyers, investigators, magistrates and some judges.
An investigation by The Citizen reveal that deliberate acts of omission by state attorneys and patent flaws by investigators has resulted into incurable irregularities that aid drug traffickers escape justice.

Some magistrates unreasonably crossed their jurisdiction to grant bail to people facing drug trafficking charges instead of the High Court, or issued decision in favor of drug dealers using arguments from defence that could easily have been challenged.
Some judges too have issued controversial decisions when issuing judgments in drug cases that leave a lot of questions unanswered.

They have, for instance, granted bail to people facing drug trafficking cases in blatant violation of the anti-narcotics law which categorises drug trafficking as unbailable offence.
There are cases where judges could not desist from expressing their frustration over shocking and deliberate omission by the office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) with regard to calling of key witnesses or tendering crucial evidence in support of their cases.

State attorneys would be on the spotlight for entering nolle prosequi (a notice of abandoning a case) to drop drug trafficking cases despite existence of credible and watertight evidence to secure conviction, investigations into some of the recent drug cases show.

The manner in which investigators handled drugs seized from suspects or extracted statements from suspects or witnesses raise a chain of illegalities ought not to have been permitted or committed but which ended up helping accused persons to easily escape justice.

Although judges and magistrate always have a reason over final court decisions, a critical analysis of some judgments clearly showed signs of recklessness or eagerness to lean towards the side of traffickers. The prosecutors often left out key testimonies or failed to attach crucial evidence – in the drug cases, the value of seized drugs for example required to signal presiding magistrates or judges of the legal threshold to grant bail.

When video record vanished

One of the cases that has spurred intense soul-searching over how drug dealers easily escape justice is the decision of the DPP to drop drug trafficking charges against Ungandans  Ms Sylivia Kaaya Namirembe, Mr Farid Kisuule and Mr Robinson Teise.

In this case, Guinean Diaka Brama Kaba and Liberian Ndjane Aboubakar, masquerading as diplomats on a delegation to the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), were arrested first at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in June 2010 in possession of 31 kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in diplomatic bags.
Police were on the trail of their three Ugandan accomplices who were scheduled to land at JNIA but decided to land in Malawi on learning about the arrests in Dar.

They left their consignment in Malawi and entered the country through the Kasumulo boarder but were arrested at Namanga as they tried to enter Kenya.
Chief government chemist examined three bags seized from the Ugandans and discovered traces of cocaine.

Police decided to join them in the drug trafficking case facing Kaba and Aboubakar after several evidence including video pictures from a laptop seized from Aboubakar revealed they were the same troupe. The laptop pictures showed the five suspects holding the same ‘diplomatic’ bags seized at JNIA while in Lima, Peru where the drugs originated. Investigation records show that the video also contained recording of a sex scene between two of the suspects.

This was crucial evidence by prosecution to show that the five accused had a common intention to traffick in drugs.


During full trial, a prosecution witness from the Cybercrime Unit at police headquarters was called to give evidence on the content of the laptop and how it connects the five accused with the drug offence.

Intrigues would soon start when a police witness told the court that the laptop was not functioning. It would be discovered later that the laptop which was in the hands of the cybercrime expert had its IDE cable (a cable connecting hard drives and optical drives to motherboards in a PC) was cut off.

It took the personal intervention of the former head of Anti-drugs Unit (ADU) Godfrey Nzowa to hire own technician who examined and repaired the device to safeguard the evidence.
When the content of the laptop were finally displayed in court, the accused were seen in different scenes holding the diplomatic bags with the same marks and labels to those seized at JNIA.

Incidentally, one of the accused in the dock that day wore the same shirt that was seen in the laptop pictures as he handled the diplomatic bags while in Lima.
Shocked by images that were being displayed in court, police sources said the suspect fainted in courtroom, forcing the judge to adjourn the case.

But this case would be assigned to another Judge in a later criminal session after the DPP decided, in February 2015, to withdraw from the High Court all drug trafficking cases and charged the accused afresh in a reported move to mend serious flaws that would have compromised the cases at the expense of the State.

When the hearing kicked off and prosecution allowed to continue with its case, the new judge directed the cybercrime witness to once again replay the details of the laptop video.

“It was shocking that this time around, the projector displayed nothing except a portrait of former US president George Bush,” recalled one court orderly. The witness from the cybercrime unit informed the court that the laptop could have not displayed any video recording because it’s hard disk was ‘lost’.

Visibly surprised by the explanations the judge directed the witness to open the computer for verification. When the laptop was opened it became clear that the hard disk had been removed, according to court records seen by The Citizen.

However there was no attempt to question how the device that stored such crucial evidence to prove the prosecution’s evidence could easily be lost in the hands if the state.

Insiders have told The Citizen that the disappearance of the hard disk was deliberate and that a witness and some officials in the DPP’s office were paid millions to destroy the laptop evidence that connected all the suspects with that particular drug offence. With all evidence linking the five accused to the drugs seized at JNIA destroyed, chances of the State to succeed were zero.


When the case came for hearing in another session, the DPP’s office entered a nolle prosequi, informing the court that the government no longer had interest to pursue the case against three Ugandans.
The destruction of the laptop evidence and decision to drop charges against the Ugandans is now a subject of fresh attempts by anti-drugs authority to take to task those seen as having compromised the case.

Whose drugs?



The quashing of conviction and life sentence against four men who were arrested in Mtwara with 52 heroin-filled capsules and later defected dozens more is yet one of the most telling example of how deliberate acts of omission and gross negligence of duty by the DPP helped drug suspects escape jail. Abuhi Abdallah, Hassan Hassan, Salum Kivurande and Abdallah Zimbwe were arrested at Peninsula hotel in Mtwara in 2006 shortly after they had arrived from Mozambique and subsequently charged with trafficking drugs. After a marathon trial, the High Court in Mtwara sentenced them to life imprisonment with passports, foreign currencies seized from them forfeited to the government.
However, the four were set free on appeal in 2012 after three judges of the Court of Appeal poked holes in the judgment of the trial court, citing serious omission by state lawyers, including that of not calling key witnesses in the case. Upon the arrest of the four suspects, they were taken to Ligula hospital where their plain abdominal X-ray pictures revealed that three of them had ‘bean-like’ foreign bodies in their stomachs and intestines. But the X-ray pictures were not tendered in court as exhibit for undisclosed reasons.
Facts of the case show that between 19th and 21st February, 2006, three of the suspect defecated 273 pellets while in police custody. The drugs were taken to then Mtwara Regional Crime Officer (RCO) Charles Kenyela who sent them to the Chief Government Chemist (CGC) by the hand of one officer called Linus.
The drugs were analysed by an officer of the CGC Andrew Magembe who confirmed the samples sent to him to be heroin. But in a surprise decision now also a subject if investigation by anti-drugs authority, the office of the DPP decided not to call the ‘most key witnesses’-Kenyela, Linus and Hamis- to support their case.
Overturning the sentence, Court of Appeal judges wrote: “In the absence of their (Kenyela and Linus) evidence, we have failed to trace an iota of evidence going to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the pellets tendered in court as exhibits were the very ones which the government chemist had analysed.”
The appellants had argued that no cogent evidence was tendered in court to prove that the pellets which were examined by Mr Magembe were the very one which had been seized from them in Mtwara. The necessary link, the Justices argued, would have been by the evidence of DC Hamisi, SSP Kenyela and SSP Linus who handled or had custody for the pellets.

“Unfortunately, all these persons (Kenyela and Linus) who separately handled these pellets never testified. Where, then, is the evidence guaranteeing that the pellets sent to the “tester” and then back to Kenyela are the very ones which Kenyela, had received from Hamis (who never testified), Lukindo and his fellow officers. This vital evidence is unfortunately missing,” said the judges.

The judges said that the absence of the two witness added to a strong and irresistible suspicion that those pellets might have been tampered with. It was for prosecution to bring contingent evidence to dispel these suspicions. Another act of omission in prosecuting the case is that a police officer, one DC Hamisi who picked out the pellets from the suspects after defecation at the hospital was also never called to testify. Why the prosecution did not call all these witnesses is not known.  Again, the police officer who witnessed the suspects defecating the pellets never told the court anything to that effect when he testified and the prosecution did not pursue that line.  “It is inconceivable that he, being the chief investigator, would have forgotten this crucial piece of evidence if he had actually witnessed such an incident,” the three Judges wrote.


Another serious flaw in the case that worked in favor of the accused was the delay of four days by the police to record cautioned statements. They were recorded outside the basic period of four hours prescribed under sections 50 and 51 of the Criminal Procedure Act. “The statements which the accused recorded with the police could not be relied upon because they were riddled with illegalities and irreconcilable contradictions,” according to the Judgement setting the suspects free.

Parliament up in arms

The acquittal of Dhoulkefly Awadh Abdallah and his wife Asha Seif Kiluvya who were arrested in March 2010 with 3.7 kg of heroin inside their room is yet another case of a bangled prosecution.
Acting on reliable information, police raided their house in Tabata Msimbasi and found Ms Kiluvya in a room where the heroin hidden in a bag were also seized. Minutes later, Mr Awadh whom Ms Kiluvya had described as his husband arrived in the house, only to land on police hands.

A year later Ms Kiluvya would be discharged on account of a nolle prosequi. With her discharge despite admitting in her caution statement that the consignment was the couple’s, it would be impossible to sustain a charge against Mr Awadh.

High Court judge who heard the case refused to admit the caution statement in court following an objection from defence lawyers that it was recorded contrary to the legal requirements. During the hearing, Mr Awadh denied to have introduced Asha as his wife and that the drugs were found in their possession. He said the bag that was found with the drugs was in Asha’s room which he visited occasionally. With so many patent flaws in the prosecution case, Mr Awadhi was set free in October last year, saying prosecution failed to establish the accused was actually found in possession of or was the owner of the said bag.
At the end of his judgment the judge could not desist from attacking investigators for shoddy investigation of the case and prosecution for presenting the case half-heartedly.
Said the judge: “The treatment of some of the important issues involved like establishing who exactly was trafficking in the drugs was too casual and left a lot to be desired. The investigation of it was most superficial, and the presentation of it in court was only half-hearted, leaving too many loose ends.”
Another questionable move of the court that triggered intense national debate was the decision to grant bail to Pakistanis Abdu Ghan Peer Bux and Shahbaz Malik who faced charges of trafficking in a record Sh6.2 billion worth of heroin.
The bail was granted in blatant violation of section 27 (a) (1) of the Drugs and Prevention of Illicit Trafficking in Drugs Act, 1995 which forbids granting of bail to drug trafficking suspects caught with drugs worth Sh10 million. The judge while setting the suspects free, said the two Pakistanis together with two Tanzanian accomplices could defend their case while out on bail. The Pakistanis who were arrested with 179kgs of heroin worth Sh6.2 billion fled the country soon after their release on bail. The foreigners’ release was met with opposition, including from MPs who demanded in Parliament an explanation, terming the bail illegal and smacked of corruption.
There has been no sufficient efforts to trace the Pakistanis or people who stood sureties for them despite a court order on their arrest.
The story of Mwinyi Ismail Mkoko who was arrested at Kigamboni with 200 grams of heroin worth 15 million would put authorities to shame over the left arm not knowing what the right was doing.


The accused was charged with drug trafficking at Temeke District Court but would set record as one whose case was going on while he was actually a free man. The accused failed to show up in court several times for his case with the police citing sickness. But when a magistrate queried more, it was discovered that the accused had already been released on bail by a higher court.
His bail out, also illegal, according to court records seen by The Citizen, was successful after being tossed between Judges. At a later stage the case did not proceed and the DPP informed the court that he was dropping it.
In Tanga, the bailing of one Assad Aziz Abdulrasul who was arrested and charged alongside six other men with an offence of trafficking 92kg of heroin worth Sh2 billion has left many questions unanswered. His charge did not qualify for bail. Nevertheless, he was granted bail, and by a lower court that did not have the jurisdiction to grant such bail in a case only triable by the High Court.
Assad had been enjoined in the case with the other suspects who linked him to the consignment. Those also charged in the matter were Ismael Shebe Islem and Rashid Said Salim. They were arrested in December 2010 in Tengwa, Handeni, District, driving a Mistubishi Pajero in which Police recovered the 50kg of heroin.
Assad was however set free in the later stages of the case, with the court saying there was not enough evidence to link him with the offence. The case against the rest of the accused went on until June last year when they were all set free.
The court argued the prosecution failed to produce evidence pointing all the suspects to the cargo. The Pajero was never tendered  as evidence nor lodging receipts  tracing the suspects to one hotel.
In the Tanga High Court, four suspects charged with trafficking 50kg of heroin worth more than Sh1 billion were granted bail and at the end of the case were set free with the Judge citing among other reasons lack of certificate of value of the nabbed drugs in the charge sheet.The case has been put under investigation for criminal culpability for those who were handling the case both in the DPP’s office and in court.
Virgin Mary statue
Allowance of incurable discrepancies which worked in favor of suspects is evident in an earlier case in 2002 when the state lost its case for the simple reason as not using a female cop to frisk a female suspect.  
This was in the case of a woman suspect who received a huge quantity of heroin concealed in a Virgin Mary statue sent from Brazil through the post office in Dar es Salaam. The suspect, Pili Mohamed Mpalu was arrested as she collected the drug filled trophy but after months of prosecuting the case, a Kisutu court set her free by agreeing with the defense that the suspect was searched by a male officer instead of a female officer as she was a woman. The prosecution did not challenge this aspect in an appeal.
Arusha arrest
In Arusha the anti-drugs authority has moved against a State Attorney who is currently under investigation over the manner in which the local DPP office handled drugs cases. The official was last week being interrogated in Dar es Salaam over a case in which Dharam Patel, 29, and Nivan Patel, 20, who were caught in May 2014 with 173 sachets filled with heroin and 300 rolls of Marijuana were given bail, and have since disappeared. State lawyers later dropped the case despite protest from the police investigators.




Source:The Citizen Tanzania