By Our Correspondent, DAR ES
SALAAM Tanzania
Tanzania main opposition party CHADEMA Vice Chairman, Tundu Lissu, has announced that he has instructed his lawyer, Bob Amsterdam, to begin legal proceedings against Millicom, the former parent company of Tanzania’s mobile network provider Tigo, and the Tanzanian government for their alleged involvement in an assassination attempt on his life.
His
statement follows revelations in a UK court that claimed that Tigo, under
Millicom’s ownership at the time (2017), had provided the Tanzanian government authorities
with his daily communication and movements.
On
September 7, 2017 his car was sprayed with
bullets by unknown assailants, of which 16 bullets entered his body at his
residence in the capital city of Dodoma. He
subsequently underwent 25 surgeries in Kenya and Belgium hospitals.
A former worker at Tigo's
parent company, Millicom told the court this month that Tigo had shared mobile phone
data with the government showing the communications and locations of opposition
lawmaker Tundu Lissu in the weeks before the attack.
"I have informed (lawyer)
Bob Amsterdam today to start a case against Tigo and the government of Tanzania.”
Lissu told a news conference in Dar es Salaam, adding that he does not trust
local courts to handle the case.
“We will force Tigo to tell us
who they were communicating with. Who from the government asked them to track
me 24 hours. They have to tell us names." He insisted.
In its own court filings this
month, Millicom said it had learned in late August or early September 2017 of
concerns "about a local politician’s mobile phone data being passed to a
government agency".
It said the individuals
involved were disciplined and additional training was provided to Millicom
subsidiaries about how to respond to requests for company data.
The court filings were first
reported on Tuesday by British newspaper The Guardian.
The then Tanzania's president
John Magufuli condemned the attack on Lissu in 2017.
“No one has been arrested or
charged in connection with my attack.” Lissu told reporters. Adding that he didn’t go to court because he didn’t have enough
evidence. “But now we have sufficient evidence to file the case.” He said.
A
September 24 article in the newspaper says that the gunmen who tried to
assassinate Mr Lissu were able to locate the victim’s whereabouts because the
telecoms company secretly passed his mobile phone data to the government.
According
to The Guardian, the arrangement, which Tigo does not deny, was revealed
in a claim by a former internal investigator for the company that was heard at
the Central London employment tribunal this month.
Michael Clifford, a former internal investigator at Millicom and ex-Metropolitan Police officer, claims that Millicom fired him for raising concerns about the affair.
Reacting
to the revelations on Wednesday, Mr Lissu said though under Tanzania’s laws
such a case would be time-barred, there were provisions in the law that could
allow him to proceed on the ground that he has acquired new evidence.
“Cases
like these, under our laws, have a three-year statute of limitations from the
date of the event. However, the law states that if there was information or
evidence that you did not have, the three-year period starts from the day you
obtain the new evidence,” Mr Lissu said, noting that the three-year limitation
period started counting from Wednesday because he had obtained evidence that he
did not have before.
He
said he would ask the London Tribunal that’s currently handling the case to
compel Millicom to reveal the names of officials that requested for his
communication details from Tigo.
“Since
Tigo has been mentioned, they must disclose the involved parties. This incident
traumatized my family, relatives and Tanzanians,” Mr Lissu said.
Tigo is a
telecommunication company in Tanzania, with over 13.5 million registered
subscribers to their network, Tigo, directly and indirectly, employs over
300,000 Tanzanians including an extended network of customer service
representatives, mobile money merchants, sales agents and distributors.
Tigo is the biggest commercial
brand of Millicom, an international company trading in 12 countries with
commercial operations in Africa and Latin America and corporate offices in
Europe and the USA.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan,
who succeeded Magufuli after his death in 2021, pledged to lift restrictions on
government critics imposed by Magufuli, but rights groups say authorities have
been targeting opponents before local elections in November this year.
On Monday, Lissu was among several opposition leaders briefly arrested by police before they could march to protest against what they said were killings and abductions of government critics.
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