Tanzania's Tundu Lissu awaits verdict in treason trial

Dar es Salaam — Security has been tightened across Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam as the country waits for a verdict in the treason trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu, due on Friday. The 58-year-old has spent 19 months in detention and faces a possible death sentence.

Lissu, the most prominent figure in the Chadema party, was arrested ahead of last year's presidential election for allegedly inciting a boycott of the poll, Africanews reported. President Samia Suluhu Hassan's government cracked down on opponents and critics before the October 2025 vote, and huge protests followed during the election itself.

The toll from that crackdown remains contested. The opposition and rights groups say security forces killed thousands; the government puts the death toll at 518. The figures cannot be independently reconciled.

An AFP journalist said security was heightened in the city this week, with analysts warning the verdict could spark further unrest. Chadema has urged supporters to turn out in large numbers for the court session. Police, in a statement on Wednesday, warned against "those who want to stage a coup", saying groups were mobilising to travel to the city.

The case has drawn criticism from Britain and the European Union, whose lawmakers called it politically motivated and demanded Lissu's immediate release. "The use of capital punishment against a political opponent risks turning the justice system into an instrument of political repression," they wrote in a letter to Tanzania's president. US ambassador William Trachman posted on X that he was closely following the trial and "the broader implications for the rule of law".

This is only the third high-profile treason trial in mainland Tanzania's history. The first two, in the 1970s and 1980s, involved defendants accused of plotting to overthrow and assassinate founding president Julius Nyerere. Lissu has been arrested repeatedly over his opposition work, and in 2017 survived an assassination attempt in which he was shot 16 times — an attack he believes was politically motivated and which required nearly 20 surgeries.

Lissu insists he is innocent and represented himself in court. In final submissions he urged the three-judge panel to show "courage" and carry their burden "without bias". Anna Bwana of the civil society group Twaweza East Africa told AFP the mood suggests a guilty verdict is taken as given; the question, she said, is the punishment. His supporters now wait to learn which.