Assassination Attempt in Tanzania: Opposition Leader to drag Government into international courts

Former Tanzania’s Presidential Candidate, Tundu Lissu says he intends to drag the Country Government before International courts following new evidence indicating that state organs could have been involved in his assassination attempt.

Though the rains of bullets failed to kill the outspoken politician, the guns’ attack however left him maimed for life.

Addressing journalists in Dar-es-Salaam, Lissu, who was ridden with 16 bullets by mysterious gunmen in Dodoma about seven years ago, managed to escape death by whiskers.

The Vice Chairperson of the leading opposition party in Tanzania CHADEMA, Advocate Lissu points out that the latest report from the U.K employment tribunal in London points accusing fingers to a local telecom firm, Tigo and the government.

“Now that we have fresh evidence, we can confidently file a case,” said Tundu Lissu who following his September 2017 attack, was flown abroad to Belgium for surgery and remained there as a political refugee in Exile for over five years.

Lissu is already in talks with his international lawyer Bob Amsterdam.

The faceless assassins reportedly showered bullets at the politician after they have been tracing his whereabouts for several days.

“The Tanzania Government did not bother to investigate nor open a case file on the incident,” he said, adding that the attack could be translated into act of terrorism based on political motives.

The killers were said to have been kept up to date regarding his locations after the telecoms company secretly passed his mobile phone data to the government, according to evidence heard in the London tribunal.

Michael Clifford, a former U.K Metropolitan police officer, claims that Millicom, the owner of the Tigo brand in Tanzania, laid him off for expressing concerns about the illegal affair.

Tigo is accused of providing the killers with phone call and location data belonging to Tundu Lissu to some officials in the Tanzanian government shortly before he was gunned by the assailants in September 2017.

The illegal arrangement, which Tigo does not deny, came to light during the claims by Clifford who is the former internal investigator for the telecoms company that came up for hearing at the Central London employment tribunal and got published by The Guardian newspaper.

“Clifford’s case is that he was unfairly dismissed from Millicom employment after making protected disclosures, in respect of matters of the utmost seriousness and public interest importance,” the Claimant’s attorney revealed in written submissions.

Lissu’s car was sprayed with bullets after driving into the parking bay of his parliamentary residence in Dodoma on 7 September 2017.

He suffered serious injuries including on his legs, ribs and back.

It was later discovered that the CCTV Surveillance cameras were removed from the building shortly before the attack and that the guards who manned the gates were also ordered to vacate from property.

Five days later, Clifford began investigating after hearing on a conference call that Millicom had been providing Lissu’s mobile phone data to the Tanzanian government.

He later handed a summary of his findings to his superiors, his lawyers said.

The report concluded that “information had been provided to the Tanzanian government since 22 August 2017”, the lawyers said. “From 29 August 2017, the intensity of the tracking increased and Tigo used its human and electronic resources to live track the location of two of Mr Lissu’s mobile phones.”

The data was passed to the government via WhatsApp messages, which Millicom was later ordered to delete. No formal legal request for the data appeared to have been filed.

In connection with that, Tundu Lissu will also take Tigo and its parent firm Million to court, alongside the Tanzanian Government in the case.