By Kusekwa Kusekwa
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has lost an appeal at the High Court in Manyara that had challenged the acquittal by the Hanang’ District Court of one Emanuel Mussa, who was originally charged with rape and impregnating a 17-year-old school girl.
Judge Mwihambi Nenelwa Mwihambi ruled recently that she found the appeal by the DPP without merit and therefore upheld the decision of the District Court of Hanang,’ sitting at Katesh.
“…This court finds the appeal with no merit and hereby dismiss it. Accordingly, the decision of the District Court of Hanang’ is upheld. It is so ordered,’ the judge declared.
During the appeal, the DPP had submitted that the trial magistrate had erred for failure to properly analyse and evaluate the prosecution’s evidence, thus ended up with the wrong judgement by acquitting Mussa. The DDP had further argued that the trial magistrate had erred, both in law and fact, by holding that the evidence adduced in court during the trial did not sufficiently support the charge.
The judge noted that there were some discrepancies in the testimony of witnesses that went to the root of the matter. She therefore held that the prosecution had failed to discharge the duty of proving the case “beyond reasonable doubt” against the respondent.
Still on the discrepancies during the trial, the judge noted that when the incident happened for the first time on September 7, 2023, the victim did not report it to anyone until it came to the knowledge of her mother after the second occurrence on October 19, 2023.
“The record is clear that the victim never received any threat from the accused for her not to report the incident earlier. Yet, she delayed for more than one month in reporting the incident. More so, it is also vivid from the records that the delay to report the incident by the victim was intentional…this court finds the delay of reporting the incident by the victim dented her credibility as a witness,” the judge ruled.
It was alleged during the trial that on September 17 and October 19, 2023, Emmanuel Mussa had sexual knowledge (somewhere in Hanang’), of the under-age Secondary School girl whose name was withheld for privacy reasons and protection of minors. She has since become of majority age while the appeal was still pending in court. The Arusha News could not immediately get her name.
