A Tanzanian court upholds death sentence for man convicted of murdering his sister

Mwanza. The Court of Appeal has upheld the death sentence for Mayunga Mwenelwa, a resident of Mangulua Village in Kwimba District, Mwanza Region.

Mwenelwa was convicted of the brutal murder of his sister, Nyazala Mwenelwa, and subsequently burying her body.

Nyazala went missing on July 18, 2015, and her body was found on July 30, 2015, buried in a pit near Mayunga’s home.

After being questioned, he confessed to killing and burying his sister.

He was subsequently arrested and charged with murder.

The High Court found Mayunga guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging.

However, he appealed the verdict, claiming innocence and presenting six grounds to support his request for release.

A panel of three judges from the Court of Appeal convened in Mwanza to hear Mayunga's appeal, dismissed the appeal, and confirmed the death sentence.

This sentence was originally imposed by Judge Fredrick Manyanda on July 26, 2020.

In their ruling delivered on July 19, 2024, Judges Lugano Mwandambo, Lilian Mashaka, and Gerson Mdemu stated that the prosecution's case met acceptable standards of proof and expressed no doubt that the charge was substantiated.

How the body was discovered

According to the prosecution's evidence, Nyanzala Mwenelwa disappeared suddenly on July 18, 2015.

On the same day before her death, another brother of the deceased, Jombele Mwenelwa, who was watering his garden, saw Nyazala carrying a sack as she headed to the field to harvest potatoes.

After finishing watering the garden, Jombele, who was the first prosecution witness, left for Jojilo Village.

When he returned, Nyazala's son, Kinda Emmanuel, informed him that he could not find his mother and was searching for her.

The two went to the field and found the sack, a bucket full of potatoes, and a hoe.

They began searching for her and inquiring with other relatives, but their efforts were unsuccessful.

They then decided to inform her husband, Malimi Koroboi, who was the fourth witness.

Her husband returned home and called a family meeting to discuss the matter.

Village leaders, including the hamlet chairman, Shilala Lyagamana (the second witness), reported the incident to the village, and villagers responded by starting to search for the deceased.

However, the search did not yield results.

Village leaders instructed the deceased's relatives to continue searching while they conducted a secret investigation.

On July 30, village leaders and some relatives suspected Mayunga after discovering he had stopped searching for his sister.

In their secret investigation, they found a new pit near the accused's house.

After discovering the pit, the accused disappeared from the village.

When found and questioned, he initially claimed to have killed a dog and thrown it into the pit.

However, under further pressure, he admitted to killing the deceased and burying her in the pit.

The accused led the village leaders and relatives to the pit outside his house, and when they started digging, they found human bones.

They stopped digging and informed the police, who arrived with a doctor.

The police continued digging and found a human skull and bones, with the body partially decomposed.

Inside the pit, they found a knife and some burned human flesh.

Relatives identified the deceased from the remnants of the clothes she was wearing the last day she disappeared.

Besides the clothes, they confirmed it was hers due to the hairstyle she had that day, which had not been burned.

When questioned by the police in the presence of his relatives, the accused confessed to the murder.

The police took a warning statement from him, in which he admitted to the murder.

When taken before a peacekeeper, he confessed to killing his sister, and these statements were accepted as evidence.

Defence in court

The accused disputed the prosecution witnesses' evidence, claiming that he confessed to the murder only after the body was discovered because he was assaulted by a large group of citizens and some relatives.

He argued that, when questioned by the police, he denied killing the deceased.

However, he claimed that the police decided to beat him, prompting him to confess in an attempt to save his life.

Based on the evidence of eight prosecution witnesses and four exhibits, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging.

The accused appealed to the Court of Appeal on six grounds, seeking to be set free.

Appeal grounds

Among the grounds presented in court to challenge the death penalty was the argument that the Judge erred in law by convicting and sentencing him to death based solely on circumstantial evidence, with no eyewitnesses to the murder.

He also argued that the Judge erred in convicting him based on his confession, which he claimed lacked sufficient details to substantiate a conviction for premeditated murder, a crime punishable by the death penalty.

He claimed the Judge erred in law by basing the conviction and death sentence on a confession from the accused, arguing that the law requires such confessions to be corroborated by independent evidence.

He argued that there was no scientific evidence to prove that the remains found in the pit were those of Nyazala Mwenelwa, particularly since no one witnessed the murder.

He claimed his police statement was written under duress and should have been excluded from the case proceedings.

He claimed the Judge erred in accepting the weak and questionable prosecution evidence.

Judges' Verdict

After hearing arguments from both sides, the judges upheld the High Court's judgement, which sentenced the accused to death.

They stated that the confession from the accused was not contested in court and emphasised that it was made by the accused himself.

The judges affirmed that it was correct for the court to accept the evidence presented by the witnesses and the appellant himself.

They confirmed that Nyanzala Mwenelwa was killed and that her death was unnatural.

They noted that the first and fourth witnesses confirmed the deceased's identity through her hairstyle and the clothes she was last seen wearing.

The judges stated that by analysing all the evidence and the confession, it was clear that a knife was used to end the deceased's life.

Based on this evidence, the Court of Appeal saw no reason to overturn the High Court's conviction and death sentence for the accused.