DPP wants Kasusura appeal dismissed

DAILYNEWS Reporter

THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has asked the Court of Appeal to dismiss the appeal lodged by ‘prominent prisoner’ Justine Kasusura who challenges the 30-year imprisonment sentence imposed on him for robbing about 4bn/-, property of Citibank.

Principal State Attorney Tumaini Kweka, for the prosecution, told Justices Mbarouk Mbarouk, Sauda Mjasiri and Semistocles Kaijage last week that the grounds advanced by Kasusura in attempt to fault the judgment given by the High Court on the matter, lacked legal merits.

“We request this court to uphold the conviction of armed robbery and confirm the 30-year-imprisonment sentence imposed on the appellant (Kasusura) by the trial court. The appeal lacked merits and deserved to be dismissed in its entirety,” the trial attorney submitted.

Kasusura, alias John Laizer, who was seen, dropping some tears as he was arguing his appeal before the panel, has advanced nine grounds to fault the judgment given by then High Court Judge Thomas Mihayo on June 23, 2010.

In the High Court judgment, Judge Mihayo (retired) confirming the verdict given by the trial court, the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam, which had jailed Kasusura 30 years and 12 strokes of the cane, for robbing 2 million US dollars, which was on transit.

Kasusura alleges in the memorandum of appeal that the High Court judge grossly erred in law and fact when confirmed conviction and sentence upon him without noting that the prosecution evidence on record does not correlate with the particulars of the charge as regards to what was stolen.

He stated that the judge erred in law and fact after upholding conviction and sentence in a case where the prosecution failed to lead evidence to establish the alleged theft as the said owner never testified at least to say that the alleged money was his, the thing which occasioned a miscarriage of justice.

According to him, the High Court judge misdirected himself in law and fact when upheld conviction and sentence against him while knowing that it was and still is an extra overt state of fact that the prosecution failed to prove as whether he was assigned a firearm by his employer, Knight Support.

Kasusura stated that the appellant judge failed in law and fact to uphold conviction and sentence against him without noting the trial court sadly failed by not assessing exhaustively the witnesses’ veracity for inconsistence in their testimony as to what transpired during the occurrence of the alleged crime.

It is stated further that the first appellate judge misdirected himself in law and fact when he confirmed conviction and sentence against the appellant based on exculpatory evidence of witnesses without warning himself before relying on such piece of evidence of a person who was initially co-accused.

“The learned appellate judge misdirected himself in law and fact when he upheld conviction and sentence upon the appellant based on a retracted or repudiated caution statement obtained contrary to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act admitted through flawed inquiry,” reads another memorandum of appeal.

Kasusura, in addition stated that High Court judge, like trial magistrate erred in law and fact when he upheld conviction and sentence based on contradictory and conflicting evidence, which was not assessed to the optimum in regard to what transpired during commission of the offence.