Tanzania court bans live coverage of opposition leader's treason trial
Principal Resident Magistrate Franco Kiswaga said the ban would help protect civilian prosecution witnesses, acceding to a request by the state prosecutor who said it was necessary to conceal their identities.
"Live streaming, live broadcast, and any other kind of live distribution of content online to the public including on social media or video broadcast ... are hereby prohibited," Kiswaga ruled during preliminary proceedings on Monday at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam.
Lissu had already opposed the request saying that such an order would allow the court to operate in "darkness" and prevent his supporters from following the case. Officials from his CHADEMA party also criticised the court's order.
"Justice must be done and be seen to be done," Lissu, who is representing himself after dismissing his attorneys, said last week.
Lissu is the leader of Tanzania's biggest opposition party and has been in detention since early April after he was charged with treason and publication of false information. He has rejected the charges.
Lissu, who was shot 16 times in a 2017 assassination attempt, was runner-up in the 2020 presidential election but his party has been disqualified from participating in October's presidential and parliamentary votes.
His detention and unexplained abductions of government critics in recent months have shone a spotlight on the human rights record of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who says her government is committed to respecting human rights.
Hassan is running for the presidency for the first time after assuming office following the death of her predecessor John Magufuli in 2021.
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Fox News
2 hours ago
- Fox News
Abrego Garcia lawyers file motion to dismiss criminal charges from Trump DOJ, citing 'vindictive' prosecution
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His lawyers argued Tuesday that the timeline of the investigation and the incitement show the "extreme lengths" the administration has gone to in order to "make a criminal case" against their client. But Abrego Garcia's case is deeply complicated, involving dueling, but inextricably intertwined civil and criminal cases that have played out over roughly six months in separate federal courts, across two continents, and in dozens of status hearings before various judges. Any next steps in the case will therefore be fraught with political backlash. Already, Friday will bring to a fore key deadlines in both the civil and criminal cases involving Abrego Garcia: His expected release from U.S. custody in Nashville at the end of a 30-day stay, will set into motion the restrictions on his removal that were imposed in a separate court order handed down by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland last month. That order requires him to be transferred from Nashville to the nearest ICE detention facility in Maryland. Lawyers told the court they plan to escort him via private security, amid concerns about compliance from the Trump administration, as his family's lawyers acknowledged to Fox News Digital in an interview last month. ICE officials are also required to give Abrego Garcia 72 hours notice of the country of removal before they begin deportation proceedings, Xinis said in her order. Abrego Garcia's case has prompted the firing or resignation of at least three government officials at DHS and the Justice Department, including the abrupt resignation of Ben Schrader, a former federal prosecutor and former chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Middle District of Tennessee. Schrader resigned from his position at DOJ on the same day that the Justice Department secured the indictment against Abrego Garcia. His lawyers used the 'Hail Mary' court filing this week to spell out, in careful detail, the timeline of the civil lawsuit and the Justice Department's criminal investigation into Abrego Garcia, which kicked off while he was still detained in El Salvador, they noted. "Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government," his lawyers said Tuesday. "It is obvious why." The new filing recounts, in extemporaneous detail, the history of the Trump administration's actions in Abrego Garcia's nearly six-month legal saga, which has spanned two continents and multiple federal courts — making his case among the most high-profile immigration battles to date in Trump's second term. In the motion to dismiss, lawyers for Abrego Garcia ticked through the timeline of his removal from the U.S. in March, in Trump's first wave of deportation flights to El Salvador, as well as his eventual return months later. They detailed the timing of when the Justice Department began its probe into Abrego Garcia, and when they secured a federal indictment against him. They argued that the timing shows the criminal case was brought by the Trump administration "for avowedly vindictive reasons," and, in their view, as a means of retaliation after Abrego Garcia's family filed a lawsuit in Maryland challenging his removal. Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. in May — months after Xinis, the Maryland judge presiding over the civil case, ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S .— a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court in April. The government's lack of candor and continued stonewalling prompted Xinis to threaten potential contempt proceedings earlier this year. Upon his return to the U.S. in May, Abrego Garcia was immediately slapped with two charges of human smuggling stemming from the 2022 traffic stop, prompting fresh concerns about the government's next steps. 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Yahoo
2 hours ago
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Kilmar Abrego Garcia highlights the Trump administration's criminal vengeance, too
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2 hours ago
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