Poachers hit with hefty sentences

Dodoma. The Dodoma Resident Magistrate Court yesterday slapped a 32-year sentence to seven people convicted of three poaching offences apiece plus forming a criminal gang.

However, magistrate Mwajuma Lukindo, who passed the sentence, acquitted Boniface Malyengo, famously known as the merciless devil, after the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the charges against him.

The convicts are Juma Malyango, Lucas Hosea, Mwinyijamal Igonza, Lucas Mayai, Emmanuel Sindano, Daud Mwaja and Yohana Chamaulaya.

Passing the sentence, the magistrate said that in the first charge of forming the criminal gang, the seven accused persons had been found guilty and jailed for 10 years while Malyengo was acquitted after the prosecution failed to prove the charge against him.

In the second charge, the six accused persons were found guilty of being found with government trophies and sentenced to two years in jail with the exceptions of Malyengo and Mwaja, against whom the prosecution failed to prove the charge.

Magistrate Mwajuma said in the third charge, the six accused persons, were sentenced to 20 years in jail each with the exception of Malyengo. They were found guilty of being found with 18 elephant tusks. The magistrate also ruled that three guns seized in the incidents and the 18 elephant tusks found be handed over to the government and that the sentence will have to be approved by a judge of the High Court.

Earlier, State prosecutor Salim Msemo asked the court to mete out a severe sentence against the accused so that it serves as a lesson to society.

However, the defence lawyer, Paul Kusekwa, asked the court to reduce the punishment because the convicts had been remanded for a period of three years.

“To punish them severely is not the aim of reforming them to become good people, but to humiliate them,” he said.