Tano John versus The Republic; Criminal Appeal No 372 of 2017: Court of Appeal of Tanzania at Dodoma (Unreported).
- Evidence
- Confession – accused object to cautioned statement because it was obtained under torture- no inquiry was conducted – effect
- Visual identification – accused not known to a witness – identification parade must be conducted
- Identification parade-why important?
Held:-
(i) When an accused alleges that he or she was tortured into making a statement, a trial court can only determine that the statement was voluntarily made or not after it has conducted an inquiry or trial within trial. Failure by a trial court to conduct an inquiry into voluntariness of the statement after an accused has alleged torture amounts to a substantial irregularity.
(ii) Even where an incident occurs during daytime but the accused was not known to the witness before, the prosecution cannot rely on dock identification alone. There are grave dangers in relying on dock identification. The normal practice in instances where a culprit was not previously known to a victim is to hold an identification parade where the suspects get apprehended.
(iii) The holding of identification parades to have suspects identified is intended to ensure that the identification of a suspect by a witness takes place in circumstances where the recollection of the identifying witness is tested objectively under safeguards by placing the suspect in a line made up of like looking suspects.