THE prosecution in the trial of former Commissioner General (CG) of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Harry Kitilya and two others, has filed a notice of appeal at the High Court to reject a ruling issued by the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court to delete the money laundering count of over 12bn/- payments from the list of offences.
Before Senior Resident Magistrate
Emilius Mchauru, Principal State Attorney Oswald Tibabyekoma said they
had filed a notice of appeal and therefore, the matter was no longer in
the hands of the court (Kisutu Court).
“The notice of appeal of the Director of
Public Prosecution (DPP) constitutes an appeal. The court has, for that
matter, no jurisdiction to issue any orders as a legal requirement,”
alleged Mr Tibabyekoma.
The defence, led by Mr Majura Magafu,
told the court that there was no provision under the Criminal Procedure
Act, which empowers any court to contest a ruling that has not been
delivered.
“Knowing so, last time when we wanted to
withdraw our application, the prosecution rejected the issuance of a
ruling,” noted Mr Magafu. He alleged that the notice of appeal cannot be
used to as an order to stay the proceedings or arresting delivery of a
judgment or ruling.
“The prosecution was preempting the
magistrate from granting the accused bail and that matter it is a
presumption of innocence for them,” he alleged. Earlier, Mr Mchauru had
ruled that Count Number Eight on money laundering in the charge sheet
was defective.
He established its defectiveness based
on the substance and particulars of the offence, meaning that its
composition was not clear to allow the accused to defend themselves in
court. It was also noted that the offence was framed based on Section 12
(a) of the Money Laundering Act while it barred other parts of the
section as well.
After declaring the money laundering
charges as defective, Mr Mchauru requested for a 30-minutes adjournment
for him to come up with the decision whether he had granted the accused
bail or not, that is when the prosecution came up with the notice of
appeal.
The other accused persons are former
Miss Tanzania and Head of Investment Banking at Stanbic Bank, Shose
Sinare and Sioi Graham Solomon, former Chief Legal Counsel to the
bank.Other charges are forgery, uttering false documents and obtaining
six million US dollars (about 12bn/-) by false pretence
No comments:
Post a Comment