BY THE ARUSHA NEWS REPORTER
The High Court at Moshi has sentenced one Augustine Michael to 10 years imprisonment for the lesser crime of manslaughter finding no water tight evidence for the capital offence of murder, which carries the death penalty, as he was previously charged.
The court heard that Michael killed one Emmanuel Hashimu whom he had allegedly found sodomising his (Michael’s) son at a shop at Lembeni village in Mwanga district on November 11, 2023. There were no eye witness accounts and the prosecution’s case hinged heavily on circumstantial evidence only.
“Having regard to the motive and environment in which the offence was committed, it is, on considered view, that the accused be found liable for a lesser offence of manslaughter,” Judge Lilian Mongella declared when delivering her judgement recently.
She noted that from the prosecution’s evidence, the accused was extremely enraged when he found the deceased sodomising his only child and merely acted at the spur of the moment without lucid consideration of the consequences of his actions. Also, the prosecution had failed to prove that the accused committed the offence with malice aforethought, she said.
“So, in the court’s considered view, the accused’s state of mind by that moment can be termed being not fit to think rationally on the consequences of his action. As such, this court finds the accused liable for the lesser offence of manslaughter and convicts him accordingly,” the judge said.
