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CUF brandishes ICC as govt hunts opposition leader

Saturday July 23 2016
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Civic United Front leader and three-time presidential candidate Maalim Seif Sharif Hamad. The government is threatening to charge him with incitement. AFP PHOTO | TONY KARUMBA

The political impasse in Zanzibar, which was triggered by the annulment of the presidential election in October last year has turned into a legal battle.

The government is threatening to charge Civic United Front (CUF) leader Seif Sharif Hamad with incitement while the opposition party says it has filed a complaint against the government for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

The police have not yet arrested Mr Hamad apparently because he is out of the country while neither CUF nor the ICC have provided confirmation of the party’s complaint to the Hague-based court.

The party said it had provided the court with “enough evidence” to compel it to institute investigations that would lead to the indictment of government officials.

Should this materialise, the ICC may institute preliminary investigations in Zanzibar into crimes against humanity once it gets the nod from the court’s pre-trial chamber. This would see Tanzania join Burundi, Uganda and Kenya on the books of the court.

CUF has been protesting last year’s general election results, claiming that it won the presidential poll. Party leaders have said they will resort to peaceful means to unseat President Ali Mohamed Shein, who won in a rerun in March, after the former result was annulled over irregularities.

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The party’s secretary general and three-time presidential candidate Hamad has been urging Zanzibaris not to co-operate with the government, which he says is illegitimate.

Last week, the Inspector General of Police Ernest Mangu said the police have gathered enough evidence to arrest and charge Mr Hamad with incitement.

But CUF is accusing the police of working as the ruling party’s (CCM) special branch and targeting the opposition.

READ: Zanzibar's opposition accuses police of harassment

CUF deputy secretary general Nassor Mazrui said Hamad had left for The Hague.

“Hamad has already arrived at the Hague,” he said, adding that after securing the day of appearance for submissions, two lawyers from Zanzibar and a local consultant would join him.

But Fadi El-Abdallah, ICC spokesperson, told The EastAfrican that his office was not aware of any submission at the Office of the Prosecutor.

“Any individual, organisation or others can provide information to the Office of the Prosecutor regarding alleged crimes potentially under the ICC jurisdiction. Such information is communicated directly to the Office of the Prosecutor which receives hundreds of similar communication,” Mr El-Abdallah said by email on Friday.

He added: “This information is normally held confidential. I am not informed about it, unless there is a decision on the way to proceed with the information or unless there was a decision to make public the notification of this information in discussion with the filing party.”

Submission to ICC

Twaha Taslima, CUF chairman and lawyer who is said to have drafted the petition would not say when exactly the submission was filed.

Since the annulment of the October 2015 general election in the semi-autonomous archipelago, CUF has been claiming that there have been unwarranted arrests and torture against leaders of the opposition party, and had issued a report on the matter.

CUF submission to the ICC in May presents 16 incidents of alleged abuse.

The report mentions, among other things,  rape of women, molesting of female prisoners in police custody, abduction and torture of people in custody and unreasonable arrest and detainment without charge of no less than 90 people, including top CUF leaders, contrary to the Criminal Procedures Act of Zanzibar.

The pre-trial chamber judges — seven in number — should study the submission to establish whether they warrant intervention by the court before preliminary investigations are conducted.

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