Dar es Salaam — The High Court has declined to summon President Samia Suluhu Hassan, former Vice-President Philip Mpango and former Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa as defence witnesses in Tundu Lissu’s treason trial, but ordered that summons be issued to Inspector General of Police Camillius Wambura, Chief of Defence Forces John Mkunda and the Director of Criminal Investigations.
In a ruling delivered late on Thursday, the three-judge panel held that the prosecution carries the burden of proving the alleged offence, including its case that Lissu’s words threatened the state. It said the defence therefore did not need to call senior state leaders merely to establish whether they felt threatened.
However, Justices Dunstan Ndunguru, Karyemaha and Kiwonde found that the evidence of the IGP, CDF and DCI was relevant to the defence case and directed that they be summoned. Justice Ndunguru said: “In criminal cases, it is the prosecution that has the duty to prove the offence, not the defence to prove the accused’s innocence.”
The decision is the first formal ruling on Lissu’s attempt to call sitting senior state officials after he was ordered to enter his defence on August 21. It came as his fifth witness, CHADEMA vice-chairperson (Mainland) John Heche, continued evidence intended to portray the treason prosecution as part of a wider pattern of political pressure on opposition figures and to explain the party’s No Reforms, No Election campaign.
Three senior political witnesses
Lissu had asked the court to issue summonses for 11 people, including the President, former Vice-President, former Prime Minister, IGP, CDF, the heads of intelligence and criminal investigations, and several CHADEMA leaders. He said the officials could assist the court because the charge alleged an intention to threaten the government.
The prosecution opposed the request under Sections 218(1) and 314(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act, arguing that Lissu had not named the disputed state witnesses during committal proceedings. It also said the proposed evidence of the President and Prime Minister was irrelevant, and cited provisions of the Presidential Affairs Act and National Security Act.
READ MORE: Lissu Calls CHADEMA Vice-chair as Defence Links ‘No Reforms’ Campaign to Election Grievances
Lissu replied that he had named the witnesses at an earlier stage, but the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court declined to record them. He said he raised them again during preliminary hearings in the High Court and argued that every person is a compellable witness unless the law specifically excludes them.
The defence further argued that Sections 9 and 10 of the Presidential Affairs Act prescribe how a summons can be served on the President, rather than barring her from being called. Lissu also referred to the earlier Khatib Ghandi case, in which the then Director of Intelligence and Security, Augustine Mahiga, gave evidence.
The High Court accepted the prosecution’s point that the witnesses were not listed in the committal proceedings, noting that Section 281 provides for the registrar to summon witnesses named at that stage. It held that identifying them at the preliminary-hearing stage could not cure the earlier omission.
At the same time, the panel said Section 314 gives the High Court discretion to allow a witness where that person’s evidence is important. The judges then assessed the relevance of the proposed evidence rather than ending the matter solely on the procedural point.
“The court sees no need to call those witnesses, and their evidence is not relevant to this case for the defence,” Justice Ndunguru said.
The judges said the prosecution, if it regarded evidence from the President, Vice-President or Prime Minister as necessary to establish that an alleged threat was made or received, bore the responsibility for calling them. The court therefore rejected the defence request concerning those three officials.
Security chiefs to be called
The panel treated the police and military officials differently. In the closing part of the ruling, Justice Ndunguru said the court had found the evidence of the IGP, CDF and DCI relevant and directed that summonses be issued to them for the defence.
READ MORE: CHADEMA Communications Chief Disputes Claim Lissu Published Alleged Treasonous Remarks
It is not known what particular issues the court expects each official to address, nor have the dates for their appearances been mentioned. The decision, nevertheless, means the defence will have access to at least three senior state-security witnesses, while its request to question Tanzania’s top three political office-holders has failed.
The ruling also distinguished the Khatib Ghandi precedent on which Lissu had relied. The court said the intelligence chief in that case had been called by the prosecution, not the defence, and that each case must be decided on its own facts. It added that the current National Security Act had not been in force at the time of that case.
Heche’s accounts
Before the ruling, Heche resumed his evidence-in-chief with an account of alleged election-period violence, arrests and disappearances. He named several CHADEMA members and other individuals whom he said had been killed, abducted or detained in separate incidents since 2011.
Heche alleged that CHADEMA campaigner Mbwana Masudi was killed during the 2011 Igunga by-election and that two party figures, Henry Kileo and Wilfred Lwakatare, were later charged in terrorism cases that did not result in convictions. He also referred to alleged killings and arrests connected to elections in Tunduma, Mwanza, Tarime, Kinondoni, Busanda and elsewhere.
Tundu Lissu: “Do you know of other killings involving citizens, not only CHADEMA leaders?”
John Heche: “There are killings involving citizens. I have read about them in the media during local-government elections, including in Shinyanga and Tunduma.”
Heche also referred to a Tanzania Law Society report which he said recorded 718 people as abducted or disappeared. He named several people who, he testified, remained missing, including former CHADEMA aide Ben Saanane, journalist Azory Gwanda and others.
READ MORE: Court Gives Lissu Treason Trial 14 More Days as Defence Calls CHADEMA Communications Chief
These accounts were presented by Heche in support of his contention that opposition leaders and citizens critical of the government had faced intimidation.
Heche’s own 2025 detention
Heche told the court that he was arrested outside the High Court on October 22, 2025, while coming to attend Lissu’s case. He said police accused him of unlawfully crossing a border, held him in Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, and did not allow his relatives to see him until he began refusing food and water.
He said that, after he was returned to Dar es Salaam, he was taken to Oysterbay Police Station and read allegations of terrorism connected to the burning of Bus Rapid Transit stations between Kimara, Ubungo and Magomeni. He said he declined to make a statement beyond his personal details.
John Heche: “They told me I was being taken to Tarime. The journey began, but when we reached Dodoma at night, I was taken to Mtumba Police Station and kept alone in a cell.”
Heche said he was later held at Mburahati Police Station and returned to Oysterbay, where he said police released him on bond with several other CHADEMA leaders. He testified that no steps had been taken against him since.
He said the arrests of party leaders were intended to frighten them and discourage them from pursuing CHADEMA positions. He also said he knew of no senior leader of another political party who had been arrested as often as CHADEMA leaders, an assertion that remains untested.
Lissu’s past cases and 2017 shooting
Lissu asked Heche about the former’s own earlier arrests. Heche said Lissu was arrested in Tarime around 2013 after travelling there in connection with a dispute involving people who had lost relatives near a mine, and that he later faced several incitement cases between 2015 and 2020.
According to Heche, those cases ended at police stations or were withdrawn because the government did not wish to proceed, and he knew of no court conviction against Lissu.
Heche then described the September 7, 2017 shooting of Lissu in Dodoma. He said he was in Parliament on the day of the attack and that Lissu had later travelled to Nairobi and Belgium for treatment.
Heche testified that Lissu did not receive the medical treatment, subsistence or accommodation support that he said a sick MP would ordinarily receive through parliamentary arrangements. He said CHADEMA, the Tanganyika Law Society and public contributions covered aspects of Lissu’s treatment.
Tundu Lissu: “Was that procedure used for my treatment?”
John Heche: “That procedure was not used for Tundu Lissu. His treatment, upkeep and accommodation while recovering were not paid for.”
Heche said Lissu later lost his parliamentary seat while receiving treatment in Belgium, on grounds described at the time as absenteeism.
‘No Reforms, No Election’
In the afternoon, Heche set out the defence account of how CHADEMA’s electoral-reform campaign was adopted. He said former chairperson Freeman Mbowe publicly announced the position on December 10, 2024, after the Central Committee considered the party’s response to the local-government election.
READ MORE: Lissu Defence Brings Election-observer Claims and Arrest Accounts Into Treason Trial
He said the Central Committee subsequently endorsed the position on January 19, 2025 and sent it to the Governing Council on January 20 and the General Assembly on January 21. The General Assembly, he said, instructed the Central Committee to devise a plan to explain the position to citizens, religious leaders, civil-society groups and other stakeholders.
John Heche: “The General Assembly resolved that the Central Committee should prepare a plan to reach stakeholders and citizens, including religious leaders, and educate them about the ‘No Reforms, No Election’ position.”
Heche said party leaders then agreed at a Bagamoyo retreat to take the message to a range of domestic and foreign audiences. He listed meetings with the United States Embassy, retired prime minister Joseph Warioba, the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation’s Joseph Butiku, editors, Catholic bishops, the Legal and Human Rights Centre and, in Kenya, former prime minister Raila Odinga.
According to Heche, Lissu was the leading spokesperson in those engagements. He said Lissu consistently argued that presidential appointment powers over electoral officials, candidate disqualifications, campaign restrictions, difficulties for polling agents and barriers to challenging results had made elections unfair.
The witness said Lissu advocated postponing the 2025 election until reforms could be made and told stakeholders that the party would mobilise citizens to oppose an election conducted under the existing system. He said Lissu used the phrases “we will mobilise the public to stop the election” and “we will disrupt this election” in the engagements, but could not recall him using tutakinukisha outside the April 3 meeting.
Tundu Lissu: “What did I tell those stakeholders about mobilising Tanzanians to oppose the 2025 election?”
John Heche: “You told them that we would speak to citizens at public meetings to oppose an election of that kind being held in our country.”
READ MORE: Lissu Defence Says CHADEMA’s Election Campaign Grew From Alleged Poll Failures
Heche said the message in public rallies was the same as the message to stakeholders, though the language sometimes differed. He said Lissu and he addressed joint rallies in Iringa and Mbeya during a tour of the Nyasa zone in March and early April 2025.
Lissu had begun asking Heche about how he learned of the April 3 meeting when Justice Ndunguru stopped the hearing for the day. Heche said mainland deputy secretary general Amani Golugwa called him to inform him about it, but his account had not yet progressed further.
The court adjourned to Friday, September 11, at 9 a.m. Heche remains under oath, and the prosecution will cross-examine him only after Lissu completes examination-in-chief.
