By Alex Bitekeye
The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam.  Mwananchi Communication Limited acting managing director Mr Theophil Makunga is set to be charged today in what the police labeled an incitment case.

Mr Makunga is expected to be arraigned at a Kisutu court to be enjoined in the case also involving the managing editor of Tanzania Daima, Mr Absalom Kibanda.

The MCL chief’s arraignment follows over three hours of questioning by the police yesterday in Dar es Salaam. He is to be charged  as a printer of Tanzania Daima edition that carried a report the police claim was seditious.  

Earlier yesterday Mr Kibanda , 45, was  arraigned at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court and enjoined in an incitement case filed earlier against Arusha resident Mr Samson Mwigamba.

Kibanda was joined as the second accused person in the case in which Mwigamba is accused of penning the inciting article in the Kiswahili tabloid. Reading the charges, state attorney Elizabeth Kaganda told the court that Kibanda participated in inciting members of the armed and security forces in the country to disobey orders from their superiors.

Before resident magistrate Stewart Sanga, it was alleged that in the issue No 2553 of the newspaper  on November 30, this year, the accused influenced security organs not to obey the government contrary to Articles 46(b), 55(10a) and 35 of the regulations and punishment Act as amended in 2002.

“Under the headline ‘Waraka maalum kwa askari wote’ (meaning a special letter to all security forces) the accused influenced the security organs through the ‘Kalamu ya Mwigamba’ column.Mr Kibanda pleaded not guilty and was released on bail of Sh5m and a title deed of an immobile property of the same value.

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