Adriano s/o Agondo versus The Republic; Criminal Appeal No. 29 of 2012; Court of Appeal of Tanzania at Tabora (Unreported).
- Criminal Procedure
- Search – Civilian witnesses were not engaged in the search on the ceiling roof where a pistol was recovered – Effect.
- Identification parade – How it should be conducted?
Held:-
(i) When an exercise of search in some parts of a house is conducted exclusively by the police and some items are retrieved, the court cannot overrule the possibility that the items might have been fraudulently planted and the retrieved items cannot be legitimately linked to the accused to justify the invocation of the doctrine of recent possession.
(ii) For identification parade to be lawfully, the accused person should always be informed that he may have a solicitor or friend present when the parade takes place and the accused should be placed among, at least, eight persons, as fair as possible of similar age, height, general appearance, class of life as himself or herself. The eight or more person parade should be for one suspect.
(iii) It is settled law that for any identification parade to be of any value, the identifying witnesses must have earlier given a detailed description of the suspects.