Arusha. The Court of Appeal has set free two people, Maria Mtumbuka and her son-in-law, Mr Hamis Awadhi, who had been sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of trafficking heroin, weighing more than 12 kilogrammes.
The appellants were arrested on April 2, 2021, when they arrived at Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA), travelling from Harare, Zimbabwe, and heading to Mumbai in India.
It was alleged that at Terminal Three, their luggage was inspected before being loaded onto the aircraft, and suspicious items were discovered in two of their bags, which, after examination, were found to be narcotic drugs.
The decision to release the appellants was delivered on Friday, April 10, 2026, by three judges, namely Barke Sehel, Leila Mgonya, and Khamis Ramadhan Shaaban.
Justice Sehel said the chain of custody of evidence is very important in criminal cases because it ensures that exhibits presented in court are the same as those seized, without interference or alteration.
Earlier
In the substantive case, the High Court had convicted the two appellants of the offence of trafficking narcotics, where each was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Ms Mtumbuka was found guilty of trafficking 6.65 kilogrammes of heroin, while Mr Awadhi was found with 6.75 kilogrammes of the drug.
The fourth witness, who is a security officer of the Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA), told the court that on that day, while on duty at the screening machine (scanner), he noticed two bags among the luggage and became suspicious.
He claimed to have reported the matter to his shift supervisor, who informed the police.
The second witness, a police officer supervising the shift at JNIA, said he received a call alerting him to the suspicious bags and instructed officers to proceed to the scene with him, where Ms Mtumbuka and Mr Awadhi were summoned and identified the bags containing their other luggage.
After being seized, the exhibits were taken to the Government Chemist Laboratory Authority (GCLA) for examination, where the report confirmed that they were narcotic drugs, namely heroin, with the stated weight.
Defence
In her defence before the court, Ms Mtumbuka admitted travelling from Zimbabwe to India while denying committing the offence and claimed that her journey was for the purpose of seeking treatment after she injured her leg.
She claimed that she travelled with her son-in-law (Hamis) and that upon arrival at JNIA, a dispute arose between him and immigration officers who questioned her Tanzanian citizenship, and when she attempted to intervene, they found themselves being charged with the offence of trafficking narcotic drugs.
Mr Awadhi, who is a businessman selling vehicle paints in Morogoro Region, claimed that he was travelling to India for a heart examination and treatment and that a dispute arose with immigration officers, where he was beaten by police officers and forced to sign several documents while denying being found with the drugs.
Appeal
In the appeal, the appellants had five grounds of appeal, including that the court erred in convicting and sentencing them while the chain of custody of exhibits had been broken, a situation that rendered the evidence unreliable.
They explained that it was not clearly shown who had been keeping the exhibits at different stages until they were presented in court.
Another ground was that the court erred in convicting them without considering their evidence, that the court relied on exhibits prepared contrary to the law, and that the case was not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
The prosecution opposed those arguments, insisting that the evidence was strong and that minor discrepancies that emerged did not affect the substance of the case.
Judges’ decision
However, the Court of Appeal agreed with the appellants’ arguments and found that there were significant gaps in the chain of custody of crucial exhibits used to prove the charge.
In its analysis, the court explained that it was not clearly established who transported the exhibits from the custodian to the court, nor how they were delivered to the witness who examined the exhibits.
Justice Sehel said the chain of custody of evidence is very important in criminal cases because it ensures that exhibits presented in court are the same as those seized, without interference or alteration.
“Unexplained gaps in the chain of custody leave a high possibility of evidence being interfered with, thus making it unsafe to rely on it in delivering a conviction,” the court explained in its decision.
The court explained that the first witness, who presented the exhibits in court during the hearing of the case, when questioned, claimed that he did not know how the exhibits reached the court, while the fifth witness claimed to have handed them to the second witness.
Due to those irregularities, the court concluded that it was not legally safe to continue believing that the exhibits presented in court were the same as those seized from the appellants.
On that basis, the Court of Appeal decided to allow the appeal, quash the earlier conviction, and order the immediate release of the appellants unless they are held for other lawful reasons.
“Since this ground alone resolves the entire appeal, we see no need to proceed with the remaining grounds; ultimately, we allow the appeal, quash the conviction, and order the release of the appellants unless they are held for other lawful reasons,” the court concluded.
