Tanzanian opposition leader wants to prosecute government over assassination attempt

On September 7, 2017, Lissu, the opposition leader to then-President John Magufuli, had his car riddled with bullets at his home in the administrative capital Dodoma. He was hit by 16 bullets and evacuated to Kenya and then to Belgium, where he was treated.

No one has ever been prosecuted for the attack, which Tundu Lissu has always attributed to Mr Magufuli’s authoritarian regime.

Millicom

In an article published on Tuesday, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that an internal investigator for Millicom, the company that owned Tigo at the time, claimed in court that “Tigo provided Tundu Lissu’s phone and location data in the weeks leading up to an assassination attempt.”

Former police officer Michael Clifford made the revelations at a London employment tribunal hearing where he is challenging his 2019 dismissal by Millicom, which he said was motivated by its findings in the case. “This news is very important to us. We have the opportunity to get to know the people involved in my assassination,” Lissu told a news conference.

Gasthuisberg

Tundu Lissu returned to Tanzania in January 2023 after spending more than five years in exile in our country. During that period, he was treated in the Leuven hospital Gasthuisberg after the attempted murder.

When current President Samia Suluhu Hassan came to power in 2021, she broke with the authoritarian policies of her predecessor John Magufuli. She promised, among other things, to ease political freedoms and implement some reforms demanded by the opposition. However, the optimism that these initial decisions generated was tempered by the arrest of several political opponents in July 2021.

Also earlier this week, the two leaders of the main opposition party Chadema, including Lissu, were arrested. Not coincidentally, a large demonstration against the disappearances of activists was planned for that same day. The demonstration was banned by the authorities.