TUNDU LISSU: Tanzania Opposition Leader, Held a Year on Treason Charges, Files Urgent Health Plea
Ujasusi Blog’s East Africa Monitoring Team | 22 March 2026 | 0100 GMT
Tundu Antiphas Lissu, national chairperson of Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA, filed a pro se Certificate of Urgency before the Court of Appeal of Tanzania on 10th March 2026, citing permanent injuries from a 2017 assassination attempt, missed scheduled medical appointments, and serious risk to his health and recovery as grounds requiring urgent judicial intervention after nearly twelve months of pre-trial detention on capital treason charges.
What Are the Key Facts of Lissu’s Court of Appeal Filing?
Criminal Revision No. 7203216 of 2026, filed at the Court of Appeal of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, arises from Criminal Sessions Case No. 000019605 of 2025, High Court of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam Sub-Registry, ruled upon on 24th February 2026. The Republic is listed as Applicant; Lissu as Respondent. The document was certified on 10th March 2026 and lodged on 11th March 2026, bearing the stamp of the Officer in Charge, Ukonga Central Prison, Dar es Salaam. Service is directed to the Director of Public Prosecutions, National Prosecution Service, Dar es Salaam Zone, Ministry of Home Affairs Building.
The Certificate of Urgency advances four grounds:
Lissu has been in continuous custody since 9th April 2025, a period of 347 days as of 22nd March 2026.
On 7th September 2017, multiple gunshots were fired into his body, causing grave and permanent injuries with serious and continuing health complications.
Since his arrest, he has been under regular medical supervision and attending clinics for treatment and follow-up care.
By reason of continued custody, he has missed several scheduled medical appointments, placing his health and recovery at serious risk.
Lissu submits that unless the application is heard and determined urgently, he stands to suffer irreparable harm and the ends of justice will be defeated. The document is drawn and filed by Lissu himself, from Ukonga Central Prison, with no legal representation listed. That a man facing a mandatory death sentence is filing his own urgent health applications from a maximum-security prison is not a procedural footnote. It is an indicator of how completely the state has sought to isolate him from institutional support.
What Is the Medical and Physical Context Behind the Urgency Application?
The health grounds cited in the Certificate of Urgency derive from a documented, life-altering medical history that predates the current detention by nearly nine years. The following are confirmed facts, traceable to primary and tier-one sources:
Date of attack: 7th September 2017, Dodoma, Tanzania, outside Lissu’s parliamentary residence.
Nature of injuries: Sixteen gunshot wounds to the legs, abdomen, arms, and back; injuries described at the time as critical, with Lissu airlifted from Dodoma General Hospital to Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya, before further treatment in Belgium.
Surgical history: Almost twenty reconstructive surgeries were performed across Kenya and Belgium following the attack.
Permanent consequences: A persistent limp and an ongoing clinical requirement for regular medical supervision confirmed by Lissu on multiple occasions, including in sworn court statements.
Detention conditions: During a court session on 16th June 2025, Lissu stated on the record that he had been confined to Ukonga’s death row section despite carrying no conviction, and had been forced to exercise in open drainage while still recovering from leg injuries sustained in 2017.
Legal representation denied: Prison authorities blocked Lissu from private consultations with his legal team, with communications conducted through a glass partition via monitored telephone, without the ability to exchange documents. He was ultimately permitted to represent himself following a petition on 16th June 2025.
Duration of missed care: Precise figures on the number of missed appointments are not independently verified at time of publication; Lissu’s filing states “several scheduled medical appointments” have been missed since 9th April 2025.
No one has ever been charged or convicted in connection with the 2017 assassination attempt. The Tanzanian government, under then-President John Pombe Magufuli, condemned the attack but initiated no prosecution. Evidence presented at a London employment tribunal in September 2024 indicated that Tigo, a Tanzanian telecommunications company owned by Millicom, shared Lissu’s mobile location data with government officials in the weeks preceding the attack, with tracking intensity increasing from 29th August 2017 onward. No government response to these findings has been entered into the public record.
The intelligence assessment is unambiguous: a detainee with this injury profile, held for nearly twelve months without access to scheduled clinical care, and previously subjected to an unresolved assassination attempt linked by tribunal evidence to state-adjacent actors, represents a foreseeable and documentable medical risk. The state holds both the information and the means to mitigate that risk. Its decision not to do so is an operational choice, not an administrative oversight.