Court to deliver judgment on Ponda case on Monday

The Secretary of Council of Islamic Organization, Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda.

 
THE Morogoro Resident Magistrate’s Court is expected on Monday to deliver its judgment in the case against the Secretary of Council of Islamic Organization, Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda who is charged with seditious offences

Resident Magistrate in Charge Mary Moyo was previously set to give the verdict on November 18, but could not make it because she was attending to other official matters, including training on how to handle election petitions.

The magistrate will deliver the judgment after going through the evidence produced by the prosecution and defence as well as their respective final submissions presented in the criminal matter.

In the trial, Principal State Attorney Bernard Kongola is appearing for the prosecution, while advocates Juma Nassoro and Abubakar Salum are for the Muslim leader.

According to the charge sheet, the prosecution states that Sheikh Ponda is accused of uttering words with intention to injure religious feelings and inciting members of the public.

The prosecution alleges that Ponda issued statements with seditious intention, saying the government deployed an army to Mtwara to contain chaos from citizens who were objecting to the construction of a gas pipeline.

Ponda was also quoted as saying that citizens who were 90 per cent Muslims were raped, killed and intimidated while the government turned a blind eye during the conflict between residents of Loliondo.

The residents who contain 90 per cent Christians were up in arms after a certain Arab was allocated a portion of hunting block. In his examination in chief during the defence hearing, Sheikh Ponda admitted to have uttered some statements at a meeting held on August 10, 2013, at Ndege Primary School ground in Morogoro Municipality.

However, the Muslim leader pointed out that what he spoke was just a repetition of words that were said by citizens of Mtwara Region. According to him, what he was doing at the meeting is to convey the message and concerns of the people of Mtwara region to the citizens of Morogoro on the subject regarding gas extraction.

Ponda told the court that he quoted several other words at the meeting that were spoken by the people of Mtwara, but was wondering why the prosecution decided to select only a few of them and link him with the sedition case.

He claimed that the words he spoke had no impact because there was no negative reaction that came out from the people in Morogoro region where the meeting was held.