THE Tanzanian high court has released a 70-year-old man serving a life sentence for growing and peddling marijuana on grounds that the sentence imposed by a lower court was excessive. Mareremba Machafu was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on August 3 by a Bhiharamulo district magistrate after he pleaded guilty to the charge of cultivating and selling the crop, known here as bhang. Machafu had failed to pay a one million shilling (about $1 110) fine. District High Court Registrar John Mtotela said the magistrate’s court had no authority to impose a life sentence, when the maximum penalty for the offence was a fine equivalent to three times the market value of the drug, or a jail term not exceeding 20 years. – AFP
Tuesday October 2, 2001